Report on the Computational Biology Workshop for the Genomes
to Life Program
U.S. Department of Energy, Germantown, Maryland
August 7–8, 2001
Appendix C: Genomes to Life Program Overview
Built on the continuing successes of international genome-sequencing
projects, the Genomes to Life program will take the logical next step:
a quest to understand the composition and function of the biochemical
networks and pathways that carry out the essential processes of living
organisms. The roadmap published in April 2001 sets forth an aggressive
10-year plan designed to exploit high-throughput genomic strategies and
centered around the four major goals outlined in the Program
Goals chart.
The Genomes to Life program reflects the fundamental change now occurring in the way biologists think about biology, a perspective that is a logical and compelling product of the Human Genome Project (HGP). The new program will build on HGP achievements, both by exploiting its data and by extending its paradigm of comprehensive, whole-genome biology to the next level. This approach ultimately will enable an integrated and predictive understanding of biological systems—an understanding that will offer insights into how both microbial and human cells respond to environmental changes. The applications of this next level of understanding will be revolutionary.
The current state-of-the-art instrumentation and computation enable and encourage the immediate establishment of this ambitious and far-reaching program. The strategic alliance created between DOE's offices of Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) and Biological and Environmental Research (BER) will develop the infrastructure to meet these challenges. Concurrent technology development also will be needed to reach all goals within the next decade. Substantial efforts will be devoted, for example, to improving technologies for characterizing proteins and protein complexes, localizing them in cells and tissues, carrying out high-throughput functional assays of complete cellular protein inventories, and sequencing and analyzing microbial DNA taken from natural environments.
The Genomes to Life program complements and augments the Department of Energy's (DOE) Microbial Cell Project, launched in FY 2001. The goal of this established project is to collect, analyze, and integrate data on individual microbes in an effort to understand how cellular components function together to create living systems, particularly those with capabilities of interest to DOE.
DOE is strongly positioned to make major contributions to the scientific
advances promised by the biology of the 21st century. Strengths of DOE's
national laboratories include major facilities for DNA sequencing and
molecular structure characterization, high-performance computing resources,
the expertise and infrastructure for technology development, and a legacy
of productive multidisciplinary research essential for such an ambitious
and complex program. In the effort to understand biological systems, these
assets and the Genomes to Life program will complement and fundamentally
enable the capabilities and efforts of the National Institutes of Health,
the National Science Foundation, and other agencies and institutions around
the world.
