Public release date: 25-Jun-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Latarsha Gatlin lgatlin@gwu.edu 202-994-5631 George Washington University

Keith Crandall, a renowned biologist and population geneticist, has been named founding director of the George Washington University Computational Biology Institute. This newly created position will further strengthen GW's role as a leader in science and research in the region and nationally.

As director, Dr. Crandall will define the scientific vision of the Computational Biology Institute and direct the development and implementation of research plans and organizational structures, with the goal of hiring new faculty as well as integrating existing faculty and resources across the university. He will also serve as professor of biology.

"This is the beginning of a true interdisciplinary initiative at George Washington that I expect will positively impact virtually all colleges and schools," said Leo Chalupa, vice president of research at GW. "I believe that Dr. Crandall's recruitment as the founding director of the Computational Biology Institute will be the driving force towards more cross-campus research in many fields including computer science, evolutionary biology and personalized medicine." Personalized medicine is a medical model in healthcare that allows practitioners to tailor medical decisions to the individual patient using genetic or other information.

The George Washington University is one of the first universities to establish an institute dedicated to computational biology. The institute will focus on large-scale integrative bioinformatics and genomics. Informatics are used to answer important biological questions using massive amounts of data, including genetic and molecular data. Many disciplines are becoming more data-intensive, creating a need for the development of new computational tools and approaches that aid in the integration, interpretation and understanding of complex datasets.

To meet this challenge, the institute will foster creation of new positions in computational biology research, enhancing and synergizing disciplines at George Washington such as the biological, biophysical and biomedical sciences as well as computation disciplines such as computer science, math and statistics. The institute will also build upon existing partnerships with regional research centers of excellence, including Children's National Medical Center, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Janelia Farm, INOVA hospital system, Naval Research Laboratory, Virginia Tech-Arlington and the National Institutes Health intramural research program.

"I feel it a great honor to join the George Washington University faculty and direct the new Computational Biology Institute," said Dr. Crandall. "We have an amazing opportunity in this new genomics era to be world leaders in developing and implementing computational approaches to broad questions from biodiversity crisis issues to translational medicine. With the exceptional faculty and outstanding leadership at GW, the institute is sure to be a huge success."

Dr. Crandall comes to George Washington from Brigham Young University where he has served as a faculty member since 1996 and chair of the biology department since 2007. He is a recipient of the Alfred P. Sloan Young Investigator Award, the National Science Foundation Career Award, the National Institutes of Health James A. Shannon Director's Award and a Fulbright Scholar Award to Oxford University. He is past president of the Society of Systematic Biologists.

A recipient of more than $18 million in grant funds, Dr. Crandall brings to George Washington two grant awards. He is the lead investigator and one of 11 researchers from 10 institutions across the country working on a component of the ground-breaking "Open Tree of Life" project funded by the National Science Foundation. Dr. Crandall also is serving as part of a team of researchers studying the affects of the BP oil spill on coastal ecosystems in the Gulf of Mexico.

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GW announces creation of Computational Biology Institute to conduct integrated research