Prof. Hugh Patterton has been appointed to lead and coordinate the bioinformatics initiative at Stellenbosch University's main campus (SU).
Bioinformatics is an interdisciplinary field that develops methods and software tools for analysing and understanding the large amounts of biological and genetic data being generated by new technologies such as next-generation sequencing. It involves computer science, statistics, mathematics and engineering, and finds application across disciplines such as biology, microbiology and genetics.
Prof. Patterton's appointment is part of a strategic initiative at SU to grow expertise in this field and to develop curricula that will result in a skill set for SU graduates. Eventually the initiative, which includes the Faculties of Science, AgriSciences and Medicine and Health Sciences, should grow into a visible entity such as a Centre for Bioinformatics.
Prof. Louise Warnich, Dean of the Faculty of Science where the initiative is housed, says next-generation sequencing and other technologies have transformed today's biology by bringing the different fields of genetic research into the laboratories of single investigators and small academic consortia: "These technologies have allowed a massive increase in available raw data. The biggest challenge facing our researchers involves the computational resources and human capacity required for its assembly, annotation and analysis."
"There is a huge need for a platform from which to launch specialist workshops and research seminars, as well as a space to interact with different disciplines and to facilitate new ideas and innovative research," she adds.
Since his appointment in August this year, Prof. Patterton has already initiated four workshops and seminars, with several new workshops planned for 2017.
He says more data do not necessarily translate into more information or better understanding: "As bioinformaticists, we are continuously exploring and developing new methods and software tools to mine the data to better understand the fundamentals of a living cell, including the development, dynamics and diseased states of living organisms."
"It is crucial that researchers understand the tools and how to use them, no matter what their background."
More about bioinformatics
Bioinformatics found its most famous application in the sequencing of the entire human genome, achieved in April 2003. More than a thousand scientists from six countries worked for a period of 13 years to analyse the three billion base pairs that make up the human genome.
Today, with advances in sequencing technologies and super computing power, the same analysis can be done in one working day. Researchers are currently sequencing the genomes of tens of thousands of humans, not only to understand human diversity and migrations, but also to improve the efficacy of medicine, based on a person's or a population's genetic makeup – the age of personalised medicine.
Prof. Patterton is specifically interested in the field of epigenetics: "We have moved beyond the view that the biology of an organism is due solely to the sequential order of nucleotide bases in its DNA. We now understand that the impact of the environment can also become encoded in an organism, and that some of this information can be inherited across generations. This occurs by modification of the DNA molecule or of proteins associated with the DNA molecule.
"We are now looking at how some proteins, the building blocks at cellular level, are impacted by external events, and how that influences the expression of genes at critical stages of an individual's lifetime."
Before his appointment, Prof. Patterton was director of the Advanced Biomolecular Research Cluster at the University of the Free State, and after that chief researcher in the Faculty of AgriSciences at SU.
Researchers who are interested in becoming part of the initiative can contact him at hpatterton@sun.ac.za
