The ongoing revolution in biomedical sciences would not be possible without recent advances in genomic and technologies. These technologies provide massive arrays of information that would not be possible to analyze without recent breakthroughs in algorithmic biology. Since computing has become an integral part of life sciences, development of modern biotechnology in Russia will not be possible without development of computational technologies for analyzing Big Data generated in genomics and proteomics. The Laboratory for Algorithmic Biology (LAB) develops algorithms and software tools for DNA sequencing, arguably the most important technology in genomics.
The LAB relies on the traditionally strong mathematical education and on the availability of the highest-caliber computational talent in Russia. It further sets the goal of directing this talent towards solving some of the most challenging computational problems in biomedical sciences. In the last year alone, LAB co-authored joint papers with leaders in experimental technologies at UCSD, J. Craig Venter Institute, Joint Genome Institute, and many other institutions. LAB also benefits from interactions with its Industrial Partners, which include Illumina and Life Technologies (leaders in sequencing technologies), Roche (the leader in the antibody industry), Astra Zeneca (leader in cancer genomics), DNAnexus (the leader in computational genomics), EMC (the leader in Big Data analysis), BioNano (leader in long read sequencing technologies), and AlkorBio (the leading medical genomics company in Russia). Many of these partners (Roche, Astra Zeneca, Genentech, Life Technology, and EMC) fund scientists at the LAB who work on various joint bioinformatics projects.
This megagrant project is rather unusual since its strengths in some key areas reside in Russia rather than in the West.
Although the LAB works on technologies that were originally developed in the US, this is not yet another “copycat” proposal that simply brings Western technologies to Russia. Instead, it aims at developing new rather than cloning known approaches. While algorithmic biology hardly existed in Russia prior to 2011, in the last four years, young scientists from the LAB (the “oldest” LAB member is just 29 years old) have become the world leaders in genome sequencing. Jointly with leading US centers, they have led projects to sequence “the dark matter of life”, hospital pathogens, and elusive bacteria from the deep ocean.