Posted on November 10, 2004 at 9:55 a.m.

BIRMINGHAM, AL — UAB will establish a Center for Computational and Structural Biology to help position the university at the forefront of 21st century biomedical research. The center, approved November 5 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Alabama system, will facilitate study of the unimaginably complex nature of living systems, focusing on the large and detailed collections of data about the protein products of genes and their interactions.

“The human genome project provided extensive knowledge about human genes, but little about the protein product of each gene and how these relate to health and disease,” says Dr. Jere Segrest, Professor of Medicine and Director of the Center. “Structural biology and computational biology —two interrelated, computer-intensive, structure-based approaches — will be the engines that drive 21st century biomedical research into the role of protein products of genes in health and disease.”

In lay terms, structural biology provides detailed blueprints of the individual parts of a cell. Computational biology provides a motion picture of the individual parts of a cell. “Together, these new approaches promise extraordinary new drugs and procedures for solving humankind’s most persistent and difficult medical problems,” says Segrest.

The new center will coordinate UAB’s already outstanding resources in X-ray crystallography, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, cryo-electron microscopy and high-performance computing. The center will draw scientists and resources from the schools of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, Engineering, Optometry and Medicine.

“This center will provide a framework for a new discipline that spans all of biology.” says Segrest. “We believe that this discipline will advance to the point of supporting a major initiative, similar to the human genome project, directed at the development of detailed molecular models of membrane proteins and their dynamics.”