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Archived news and events

Old news

2012

The Bonobo Genome compared with the Chimpanzee and Human Genomes

Picture of BonoboThe bonobo is our closest relative along with chimpanzees. As part of an international collaboration, researchers from the Bioinformatics Research Centre have participated in the sequencing of the complete bonobo genome. This work reveals that that for over 3% percent of the our genome we are more closely related to either the bonobo or the chimpanzee genome than these are to each other. The results are published in the journal Nature.

The gorilla genome reveals that our origin is a genetic patchwork

Picture of Gorilla female
An international team of researchers with the participation of researchers from Bioinformatics Research Centre, Aarhus University, has carried out the first complete sequencing of the gorilla’s genome. The gorilla is the last of four existing species of anthropoid apes to have its genome mapped. The result has just been published in the journal Nature.

 Development of the Chimpanzee determined by the X Factor

Pict of chimpanzee

Genetic mutations that boost an individual’s adaptability have greater chances of getting through to X chromosomes – at least in chimpanzees, according to new research carried out by researchers at the Bioinformatics Research Centre, Aarhus University, the Section of Bioinformatics, University of Copenhagen, the Copenhagen Zoo and the sequencing center at the Beijing Genomics Institute (BGI), China. The results have just been published online in the esteemed journal PNAS.

Grant awarded to develop mathematical models for genomic data

Villum Fonden (The Villum Foundation) has awarded Lars Nørvang Andersen, Bioinformatics Research Centre, a grant for the project 'Mathematical Modelling of Whole-genome Alignment Data'. The grant covers a two-year stay at Stanford University with Assoc. Prof. Noah Rosenberg.

Picture of Lars N. Andersen


Grant for the study of biomembrane complexity

Carlsbergfondet (The Carlsberg Foundation) has awarded Lea Thøgersen, Bioinformatics Research Centre, a one-year grant of approx. DKK 570.000 for the project ‘Modeling the Complexity of a Biomembrane – with the HIV Membrane as Target system’.

Picture of Lea Thøgersen





Scientists reveal new basic knowledge of cell membranes

Following an interdisciplinary collaboration, scientists at Aarhus University have presented a ground-breaking method to study cell membranes. A better understanding of the complexity of membrane function may give the scientists new ideas for developing new types of medical treatment against prostate cancer, for example. The results have been published in the leading journal Nature Communications. Read more..
Detail of a cell membrane

New world-leading Danish platform for genome research

Bioinformatics Research Centre takes part in a ground-breaking collaboration between four Danish universities and three companies now resulting in a research and technology platform with the capacity and ambition to map the genetic heritage of the Danish population. The new research centre called the Danish Platform for Large-scale Sequencing and Bioinformatics is financed by a five-year DKK 86 million grant from the Danish National Advanced Technology Foundation (Højteknologifonden). Read more.. (Danish only)

2011

Nominated for best research result of the year

Thomas Mailund, Asger Hobolth and Mikkel Schierup’s research on the orangutan genome has been nominated for the Danish Research Results of the Year by Videnskab.dk.
The readers decide who is going to win – and you can take part in the ballot via the videnskab.dk website until November 27th.

Picture of orangutan

November: New Telephone Numbers for Science and Technology Staff in Aarhus

The implementation of the new telephone system at Science and Technology will begin on Friday 25 November and should be complete by the following Monday.

All staff, units and functions will be given new numbers that will start with 8715 or 8716 as the first four digits. This relates only to landline phones starting with 8942 - not 86XX numbers or cell phones.

We will receive an email from AU IT with our new phone number around the middle of November.

Read more about the project.

 

Phone

October 2011

From October 1st, Marco Aurélio Palos Franco will visit BiRC for a three-month period as a temporary researcher. Marco has a background in bioinformatics and programming and will be working on various projects at BiRC.

September 2011

PhD Student James Anderson from Oxford University will be visiting BiRC from Sept 18th to Sept 25th.

Feb 2011: The first analysis of the complete orangutan genome published in Nature

Researchers at BiRC, Aarhus University, are part of the international group, which first analyzed the orangutan genome. The research, which also gives us new insights into the common ancestor of all apes, has reached the front page of the internationally renowned journal Nature. Read more .. (Danish only)

Feb 2011: Oxford Summer Projects in Computational Biology:

BiRC's collaborators at Oxford University host summer projects from July 4th to August 13th. Application deadline is February 20. Read more..

Jan 2011: The first analysis of the complete orangutan genome published in Nature

Researchers at BiRC, Aarhus University, are part of the international group, which first analyzed the orangutan genome. The research, which also gives us new insights into the common ancestor of all apes, has reached the front page of the internationally renowned journal Nature. Read more .. (Danish only)

Jan 2011: Open position:

A postdoc position is available at the Bioinformatics Research Centre. The ideal candidate has a background in mathematical biology with knowledge of probability theory and statistics. For more information about the job vacancy, see: Open postdoc position.

2010

Grant from the Lundbeck Foundation

Carsten Wiuf has been awarded DKK 1.085.000 from the Lundbeck Foundation for a research project entitled 'Modelling of Signalling Cascades using Algebraic Theory'.

Large EU grant awarded to BiRC:

Thomas Mailund and Mikkel Heide Schierup have been awarded two million euros for an EU project on new methods for association mapping.  More information (in Danish) here.

August 2010: Guest Professor

Jotun Hein, Oxford University, will be visiting the Bioinformatics Research Centre (BiRC) from mid-August to mid-October. During his stay, Jotun Hein will be teaching the course Research Topics in Bioinformatics.

September 2010:
New Associate Professors at BiRC:

Asger Hobolth has been appointed Associate Professor in Bioinformatics (statistics) at the Bioinformatics Research Centre (BiRC) as of September 1st.

Thomas Mailund has been appointed Associate Professor in Bioinformatics (informatics) at the Bioinformatics Research Centre (BiRC) as of September 1st.

July 2010: New PhD student at BiRC: Vikas Gupta has started his PhD education at BiRC with Christian N. Storm Pedersen as supervisor.

 

May 2010: Mikkel Heide Schierup elected member of the Royal Danish Society of Sciences

Professor Mikkel Schierup, Bioinformatics Research Centre, has been elected member of the Royal Danish Society of Sciences and Letters.
The aim of The Royal Danish Society of Sciences and Letters is to strengthen the position of science in Denmark and to promote interdisciplinary understanding.

 

May 2010: Open positions
Two positions as Associate Professor in bioinformatics are available at the Bioinformatics Research Centre, starting Sept. 1, 2010. For more information about the job vacancies, see:
Associate Professor in Bioinformatics (informatics),
Associate professor in Bioinformatics (statistics)

Old events

2012

Monday 06/8/12 - Friday 10/8/12, Aabogade 34: PhD Mini Course: Natural Computing - a formal framework for processes inspired by the functioning of living cells. Organized by BiRC, the Centre for Theory in Natural Sciences and the Department of Computer Science.
Lecturer: Prof. G. Rozenberg, Leiden University, The Netherlands, and University of Colorado at Boulder, USA. Details.

Friday 08/06/12: BiRC summer party.

2011

Thursday 15/12/2011 at 6 pm we will have our yearly and traditional BiRC Christmas lunch in the coffee room.

Thursday 15/12/2011 at 3 pm in the coffee room: BiRC's yearly end of season celebration with 'glögg and æbleskiver'.

Friday 09/12/2011 at 1 pm, C. F. Møllers Alle 8, Aud. 1110-223: PhD Defense: Martin Simonsen: Efficient Algorithms for Tree Reconstruction and Prediction of Molecular Interactions.

Friday 28/10/2011, C. F. Møllers Alle 8 , Aud. 1110-223: 13.00-14.00, PhD Defense: Jesper Nielsen: Engineering Algorithms for Finding Patterns in Biological Data.

Monday 15/08/2011 - Tuesday 16/8/2011: BiRC Mols Meeting.
Please sign up before July 3rd, 2011.

Picture from Mols

Wednesday 30/03/11: Aud. 1110-223, C. F. Møllers Allé 8, 14.15 - 15.00:
Talk by Charlotte Soneson (Centre for Mathematical Sciences, Lund University), entitled 'A method for visual identification of small sample subgroups and potential biomarkers'.

Friday 25/03/2011: C. F. Møllers Allé 8, Room 1110-214, 14:00: Master's degree exam: Melanie Christensen: 'Applications of Approximate Bayesian Computation the the analysis of genetic data'. External examiner: Hans Siegismund.

Wednesday 09/03/2011: Room 1110-223, C. F. Møllers Allé 8: 14:00 - 15:00: Birc Seminar: Søren Besenbacher: Decoding the Icelandic genome.

Wednesday 09/02/2011: Room 1110-223, C. F. Møllers Allé 8: 14:00 - 15:00: Birc Seminar: Ludovic Orlando, Paleomix Group, Centre for GeoGenetics, Natural History Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen University:  'Ancient DNA: Telling something new about the past'.

Wednesday 02/02/2011: Room 1110-223, C. F. Møllers Allé 8: 14:15 - 15:00: Birc Seminar: Jesús Fernandez Sanchez, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya: 'An approach to phylogenetic inference by means of algebraic tools'. Abstract.

Thursday 27/01/11: Room 1110-418, C. F. Møllers Allé 8: 12:00 - 13:00:
Master Thesis Exam, Thomas Klitgaard Andersen: 'Calculation of rSPR distance by heuristic algorithms'.

2010

Friday 17/12/10 at 15:00 in the coffee room: BiRC's yearly end of season celebration with 'glögg and æbleskiver' (Mulled wine and Danish doughnuts).

Friday 17/12/10: 11.15 - 12.15: Lecture room 1111-100, C. F. Møllers Allé 8:
Master Thesis Exam, Finn Rosenbech Jensen: 'Using the Travelling Salesman Problem in Bioinformatics Algorithms'.

Friday 17/12/10: 12.45 - 13.45: Lecture room 1111-100, C. F. Møllers Allé 8:
Master Thesis Exam, Dung My Hoa: 'Speeding-up Dynamic Programming in Sequence Alignment'.

Thursday 16/12/10: 13:15 - 14:45: Lecture room 1111-100, C. F. Møllers Allé 8: Part A exam, Iwona Siuda.

Friday 10/12/10 we will have our yearly and traditional BiRC Christmas lunch in the coffee room.

Tuesday 7/12/10: Aud. 1110-223, C. F. Møllers Allé 8, 14.15 - 15.00:
Talk by Tomas Marques-Bonet (Institut de Biologia Evolutiva - UPF-CSIC), entitled 'The evolution of human segmental duplications'.

Friday 19/11/10: 14.15 - 15.30, Aud. 1110-223, C. F. Møllers Allé 8: Inauguration lectures by three new Associate Professors at BiRC:

14.15-14.40: Thomas Bataillon:
Dynamics of adaptation - insights from models and loads of data

14.40 - 15.05: Asger Hobolth:
Inferring population genetic parameters from SNP data

15.05 - 15.30: Thomas Mailund:
Constructing coalescent hidden Markov models
.

After the lectures BiRC will host a reception in the coffee lounge on the 4th floor.

Friday 19/11/10: Room 1111-100, C. F. Møllers Allé 8:
Master Thesis Exam, Anders Kabell Kristensen: Computing the Quartet Distance between General Trees.

Thursday 18/11/10: Science Park, Build. 3120, MBI-3120-A.meet (Meeting room A), 15:00: Talk by Michael Knudsen entitled 'Mathematical Modeling of Phosphorylation Networks'.

Wednesday 17/11/10: Aud G1, 1532 - 116, Dept of Math Sciences: BiRC seminar: Laurent Excoffier, University of Berne, Switzerland will give a talk entitled: 'Genetic consequences of range expansions'.

Wednesday 27/10/10Aud. 1110-223, C. F. Møllers Allé 8: BiRC seminar: Frank Jensen, Department of Chemistry, Aarhus University: 'Molecular Modelling / Force Fields. An owerview'.

Tuesday 19/10/2010Aud. 1110-223, C. F. Møllers Allé 8: Talk by Aida Andres, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, entitled 'Balancing selection in the human genome: from genomic signals to individual genes'.

Monday 11/10/2010: C. F. Møllers Allé, 1110-223 8: Talk by senior postdoc Ines Hellman, University of Vienna, entitled '"Effects of sex biased evolution on patterns of diversity in Apes'.

Wednesday 29/9/2010, C. F. Møllers Alle 8, 1110-223
14.15-15.00, BiRC Seminar, Jakob Skou Pedersen: Sequencing and analysis of an ancient human genome give surprising insights into genomic organization. Abstract.

Monday 27/9/2010, C. F. Møllers Alle 8, 1110-223: 13.00-14.00, PhD Defense Peter Justesen: Distinct Candidates Optimization: A Novel Approach to Applied Evolutionary Multi- and Many-Objective Optimization.

Friday 24/9/2010, C. F. Møllers Allé 8, 1110-223: 13.15-14.00, Structural Bioinformatics Seminar by Professor Mark Sansom entitled 'Transmembrane Alpha-Helices, Lipid Bilayers & Signalling: Coarse Grained MD Simulation Studies'.

Thur 12/8/2010 - Fri 13/8/2010: BiRC Mols Meeting

Fri 25/6/2010, 13:15 - 15:15: Aud. 1110-223, BiRC: Part A exam, Hugo Martins: "Viral archeology using genome databases and a digital shovel"

Wed 9/6/2010: 15:15-16:00: Aud 1110-223, C.F. Møllers Allé 8
BiRC Seminar: Jens-Christian Svenning (Biology, Aarhus University):
"Ecoinformatics: the computing approach to ecology"

Tuesday 8/6/2010: 14.15 - 15.00: Aud. 1110-223, C. F. Møllers Allé 8: Talk by Tom Gilbert, Copenhagen University, entitled 'New insights from old sequences - the origin and spread of HIV-1'

Wed 2/6/2010: 11:15-12:15: Aud 1110-223. C. F. Møllers Allé 8:
Master Thesis Exam. Mads Baggesen.

Tuesday 25/5/2010, 9:00 - 11:00: 1532-116 Aud G2, Ny Munkegade 118: PhD Defense Minh Duy Mai: Mapping Genes for Traits of Interest in Selective Breeding.

Mon 17/5/2010, 13:00 - 15:00: Aud 1110-223, C. F. Møllers Allé 8:
Master Thesis Exam, Ross Martin Wagner: Causes of ageing.

Wed 12/5/2010, 15:15 - 16:00:  Aud 1110-223, C. F. Møllers Allé 8
BiRC Seminar: Ebbe S. Andersen (CDNA, Aarhus University): Design and self-assembly of DNA nanostructures.

Wed 28/4/2010, 14:00-15:00, aud 1110-223, C. F. Møllers Allé 8:
Master Thesis Exam. Poul Liboriussen.

Wed 28/4/2010, 12:30-13:30, aud 1110-223, C. F. Møllers Allé 8:
Master Thesis Exam. Steffen Mikkelsen.

Fri 26/3/2010, 13:00 - 14:00, Room 1111-100, C. F. Møllers Allé 8:
Master Thesis Exam. Lars Buhl Nielsen.

Thu 25/3/2010, 11:15 - 12:15, Room 1111-100, C. F. Møllers Allé 8:
Master Thesis Exam. Jesper Møjbæk.

Thu 25/3/2010, 13:00 - 14:00, Room 1111-100, C. F. Møllers Allé 8: Qualification Exam. Martin Simonsen.

Wed 17/3/2010, 13:00, Aud 1110-223, C. F. Møllers Allé 8: PhD Defense, Michael Knudsen: Mathematical Models of Protein Interaction Networks and Protein Domain Structures.

2009