Bio-MIBLab Mission

To accelerate the early detection, diagnosis, prognosis, treatment, and prevention of disease in translational medicine through advanced bioinformatics, systems biology, and molecular image processing research.

The lab is equipped with a modern computing cluster and a high resolution visualization system. Research is divided into four project tracks:

1. Systems and synthetic biology
2. Molecular and cellular image analysis
3. –omic biomarker identification
4. Bio-nano-informatics integration and interfacing with caBIG

Bio-MIBLab is creating a set of novel computation methods & models, and easy-to-use tools that will be deployed from the lab website.

In the past few years, advanced bio-technologies such as gene expression microarray, proteomics, molecular imaging, metabolomics, and lipidomics have expedited the research in molecular biology and molecular medicine, in which molecular and genetic differences among humans have been identified to provide significant diagnostic or prognostic information previously not attainable. The big challenge now facing all the researchers in biology and medicine is the huge volumes of data that are waiting to be analyzed and interpreted. With this critical need, Bio-MIBLab (Bio-medical Informatics and Bioimaging Laboratory) is focusing on translational biomedical computing and modeling research.

Scope

The lab has modern computing and high resolution visualization systems set up on the 4th floor of the U.A. Whitaker building at Georgia Tech campus. The lab focuses on computation-based translational medicine and molecular biology. To conduct hypothesis-based problem solving, methodologies in digital signal and image processing, applied mathematics and statistics, modern control theory, high performance computing, and computer science have been integrally researched and explored.

The first project track is to research and invent knowledge-based algorithms to analyze the high volume clinical “-omics” data for disease diagnosis, prognosis, and therapeutics. The second project track is to analyze the interaction of molecules to understand the underlying metabolism, pharmacokinetics, and gene regulation in molecular biology and medicine. The third project is to analyze imaging data, and then integrate multiple types of data such as molecular imaging, 3-D organ imaging, genomics, proteomics, and metabolomics data for modeling, treatment planning, and training.

The lab research outcomes have already generated some impact in the community through (1) web-based software tool deployment, and (2) integration of clinical-oriented team research results.

Ultimately, the lab hopes to create a set of reliable and accurate computation models, and tool sets that are useful in many subfields of medicine and molecular biology, to speed up the discovery process, and to improve human health.

National Vision

In Nov. 2003, the NIH has announced the roadmap “New Pathways to Discovery". Among these, there are five priorities: (1) building blocks, biological pathways, and networks; (2) molecular libraries and molecular imaging; (3) structural biology; (4) bioinformatics and computational biology; and (5) nanomedicine.

Bio-MIBLab’s translational computation research really matches to four of the top five priorities. The lab has been playing an important role in several federal and state supported large research efforts.

Partners

Bio-MIBLab has two computing industry giants, Hewlett Packard and Microsoft Research, as partners to establish not only a strong computing infrastructure, but research collaborations to fulfill the long term goal. The lab has a 68-CPU Itanium2 cluster and a multi-projector tiled-display 3-D visualization system.

Bio-MIBLab is part of Winship Cancer Institute at Emory University medical school. Together with multiple committed translational researchers in cancer, neuromedicine, and molecular and genetic biology, Bio-MIBLab has been able to tackle translational problems such as renal cancer, prostate cancer, breast cancer, ovarian cancer, schizophrenia, and fundamental problems in molecular and genetic biology.

Lab sponsors: NIH, Georgia Cancer Coalition, Georgia Research Alliance, IBB, and Johnson & Johnson. Industrial partners: Hewlett Packard and Microsoft Research.