METAGENOGRIDS · Algorithmics for Metagenomics on Grids

Numerous critical problems in bioinformatics and computational biology are computationally intensive and could benefit from being solved on a computational Grid, that is a network of geographically distributed computers. Most works that combine bioinformatics and Grids focus on biological problems that can be trivially adapted to Grids, staying clear of more complex problems. In this fellowship we propose to address, in an interdisciplinary research, the resolution on Grids of two complex and demanding problems: metagenomics assembly and metagenomics annotation. Metagenomics is the study of the genomes of an entire community of microbes; metagenomics assembly is the problem of assembling the genome of each of the microbial species in the studied community. The applicant, a Grid computing expert, proposes to work with experts in bioinformatics and experts in Grid computing to design new algorithmic solutions to solve these two metagenomics problems. In this proposal, the applicant would simultaneously visit for a year, and work with, Prof. Guylaine Poisson's Bioinformatics Lab (BiL) and Prof. Henri Casanova's Concurrent Research Group (CoRG), both located at the University of Hawai`i at Manoa, USA.