NCSA Researcher to Head NIH Bioinformatics Center

released 06.10.03

Contact

Trish Barker NCSA Public Information Specialist tlbarker@ncsa.uiuc.edu 217.265.8013

CHAMPAIGN, IL — Eric Jakobsson, a senior research scientist at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) and a University of Illinois professor, has been named the first director of the Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology (CBCB) at the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), a component of the National Institutes of Health.

CBCB, established in 2001, supports research and training in areas that join biology with the computer sciences, engineering, mathematics and physics. Examples include computer modeling of biological networks and dynamic processes; quantitative approaches to cellular, molecular and developmental biology; and the development of databases and other analytical tools.

"I am very honored by this appointment, and excited by the opportunity to help NIGMS and the National Institutes of Health advance the health of the nation through the fields of bioinformatics and computational biology," Jakobsson said. "I am sure that together we can build on the successes of these emerging fields and fully bring the power of the computer revolution to bear on biomedical issues."

Jakobsson said his research at NCSA helped prepare him for his new role.

"I learned valuable lessons at NCSA about how large scientific projects are assembled and run, and about the need for a software infrastructure to make high-performance computing accessible to all," he said. "In addition to providing leading-edge hardware, NCSA has a wonderful legacy of enabling software, dating back to Telnet, Eudora, and Mosaic, and continuing through the present day."

A major aspect of Jakobsson's job at NIH will be to help interconnect NIH's bioinformatics and computational biology software-development efforts. The goal is to create a nationally distributed software engineering project that makes biomedical computing applications as easy to use as general purpose desktop computers.

"Eric's experience at NCSA makes him the perfect choice for this important position," said NCSA Director Dan Reed. "He understands the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration and has skills and insights to bring sectors of communities together to achieve national goals. He will serve as a crucial link among NIH and bioinformatics efforts and NCSA and our efforts to build distributed working scientific communities."

Jakobsson is rapidly accruing frequent-flyer miles, as he spends part of each week in Maryland at the CBCB and then commutes back to Urbana-Champaign, where he will continue to lead research groups. In addition to his research at NCSA, Jakobsson is a professor in UIUC's Department of Molecular and Integrative Physiology and in the programs in biophysics, neuroscience and bioengineering. He also recently served as director of UIUC's Center for Biophysics and Computational Biology.

Jakobsson earned a B.S. in chemical engineering from the Columbia University School of Engineering in 1960 and a Ph.D. in physics from Dartmouth College in 1969.

For more information on NIGMS, see http://www.nigms.nih.gov/.

NCSA (National Center for Supercomputing Applications) is a national high-performance computing center that develops and deploys cutting-edge computing, networking and information technologies. Located at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, NCSA is funded by the National Science Foundation. Additional support comes from the state of Illinois, the University of Illinois, private sector partners and other federal agencies. For more information, see http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/.