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Centre for Computational Inference in Evolutionary Life Science (CELS)

CELS will address fundamental biological questions related to the genotype-phenotype paradigm in an evolutionary context using a computational inference approach

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About the project

As a multidisciplinary centre within life sciences CELS brings together strong research environments in biology and statistical and computational methods for data analysis. CELS will address fundamental biological questions related to the genotype-phenotype paradigm, how the environment affects genome evolution and development of methods for integrated analysis of genomic and other biotic and abiotic data. Our vision is further to become a leading interdisciplinary environment driven by common projects and efficiently compete in becoming a future CoE. 

The overarching goal of CELS is to become a leading environment in life sciences – both nationally and internationally – bringing together biology, statistics and computational sciences and thereby paving the way for the development of groundbreaking bioinformatical, statistical methodology and for biological sciences. Efficient exploitation of enormous amounts of data being generated within the field of genomics requires a strong effort to establish a leading computational genomics environment in Norway. Sufficient methodology within statistics and bioinformatics has not yet been developed, both with respect to the quantity of genomic data generated and the combination of genomic data with other types of biological (including phenotype) and environmental data. This proposal is embedding a Systems Biology perspective– where the different types of data are integrated in a common framework making it possible to establish links, associations and causality with respect to the underlying biological processes. A main goal is to develop interdisciplinary research activities generating science of true interest for statisticians, bioinformaticians and biologists. This is reflected in the projects proposed for the PhD students.

Bringing together evolutionary biology and ecology with genomics and not at least functionally oriented molecular biology is another goal of CELS. We also aim at building a strong group for data analysis, bridging MI and IFI, driving the research at these institutes far more towards MN faculty activities than today. In the first half-year of the period we will establish a common meeting-place and spend considerable time learning about each other’s sciences and setting up the multidisciplinary themes.

CELS is a "endringsmiljø" (Strategic Research Initiative, SRI) at the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences.

Published Apr. 6, 2014 5:53 PM - Last modified Oct. 30, 2023 1:00 PM