Structural genomics aims to provide a good experimental structure or computational model of every tractable protein in a complete genome. Underlying this goal is the immense value of protein structure, especially in permitting recognition of distant evolutionary relationships for proteins whose sequence analysis has failed to find any significant homolog. A considerable fraction of the genes in all sequenced genomes have no known function, and structure determination provides a direct means of revealing homology that may be used to infer their putative molecular function. The solved structures will be similarly useful for elucidating the biochemical or biophysical role of proteins that have been previously ascribed only phenotypic functions. More generally, knowledge of an increasingly complete repertoire of protein structures will aid structure prediction methods, improve understanding of protein structure, and ultimately lend insight into molecular interactions and pathways.
This talk will also include a brief discussion of intellectual property issues in bioinformatics.
About the speaker:
Steven E. Brenner is Assistant Professor and leader of a computational genomics research group at the University of California, Berkeley. His research interests include computational approaches for structural genomics and sequence analysis, and the use of both of these to infer molecular function. Brenner was educated and trained at Harvard University, the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology and Cambridge University, and Stanford University. More about his research group may be found at http://compbio.berkeley.edu
Contact information:
Steven E. Brenner
461A Koshland Hall #3102
Department of Plant & Microbial Biology, University of California
Berkeley, CA 94720-3102
510-643-9131
208-279-8978
brenner@compbio.berkeley.edu