5.C. Computational and Life Sciencies

The computational and life sciences initiative joins numerous strengths at Emory to establish a community that integrates the traditional science disciplines in exciting new ways, while spearheading innovative methodologies that combine computational and synthetic approaches to science and technology. The computational and life sciences initiative will promote three breakthrough concentrations where Emory can achieve scholarly and technical excellence and competitive distinction in the next few years: Computational Science and Informatics; Synthetic Sciences; and Systems Biology. The intention is to leverage synergies among these three focus areas; to excel in terms of scientific relationships, faculty, programs and facilities; to become a driving force in education, basic and applied research, and knowledge transfer; and to provide a robust scientific foundation for other cross-cutting initiatives in predictive health and neuroscience.

Synthetic Sciences: From Molecules to Machines
As physics brought forward alternative forms of energy and chemistry ushered in new generations of pharmaceuticals and materials, we are now witnessing a revolution in synthetic sciences. The title itself captures crucial dynamics between scientific observation and control, highlighting our opportunity to build – to create! – beyond even the truly remarkable in biology. When integrated with the computational arm of this initiative, we will have joined theory and experiment, and established the foundation for Emory science to contribute to 21st Century society on an unprecedented scale.

Just as development of high throughput sciences allowed for sequencing the human genome and provided the blueprint for life, we are now poised to move from molecules to machines; to expand on nature’s secrets for self-assembling and self-healing materials; to evolve microbes that detect and fight against, rather than cause disease; to create new synthetic systems as potent and selective armaments against disease; to probe new opportunities for renewable energy research; to work with nature to remove pollutants, enhance nutrition, and ensure ecological sustainability.

Computational Science and Informatics
Computational methods vastly accelerate research and discovery in many fields, particularly those relating to the life sciences. In fact, they facilitate some forms of research that would be impossible to attempt with traditional methods. Emory is uniquely positioned to originate basic knowledge in the science disciplines related to computation and informatics, while concurrently enabling quantum advances in many varied application domains.

Computational Science and Informatics will benefit from close relationships between research groups at Emory that drive innovations in databases, biostatistics, numerical analysis, and high performance systems design. Simultaneously, translational research will immediately impact advances in medicine, neuroscience, computational chemistry, human genomics, and biophysics among other disciplines. Novel algorithms, data-mining techniques, and supercomputing capabilities forged by this initiative will help unlock the full potential of bioinformatics, functional MRI, drug and small molecule analyses, and high throughput science.

Systems Biology
Systems Biology is an emerging multidisciplinary and holistic view of the biological sciences. It moves beyond molecular link scales to confront biological complexity at the cellular, organ, individual and population levels. Among its overarching goals, Systems Biology attempts to understand how complex biological systems arose, how they operate individually, and how they collectively define networks, societies, and communities. The approach can be likened to a “hub and spokes” model, in which the center produces meaning that ripples to the periphery. It draws knowledge of all kinds into a common crucible of discovery and invention.