Bioinformatics Research at UNO

Over the last several years, the College of Information Science & Technology (IS&T) has developed considerable expertise in the emerging discipline of bioinformatics. In addition to faculty and student resources, the College has invested heavily in the development of a robust computer infrastructure to support its programs in this area. A number of research projects conducted at the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO) in the area of Bioinformatics has been funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and National Science Foundation (NSF). The majority of these projects are collaborative projects between the UNO Bioinformatics Research Group and various units from the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC).

The Bioinformatics projects are currently supported by a state-of-the-art cluster computing facility located at the Peter Kiewit Institute (PKI) 158R, and conducted at the Bioinformatics Computing Lab at PKI 387 and the Text Data Mining Lab at PKI 366. The results of the research projects have been presented in many international conferences and have produced over 20 publications in the last three years.

Research Grants Awarded

1. Hesham Ali (PI) and Mark Pauley, "Construction of a Targeted Rhesus Macaque Microarray," joint grant with UNMC, Funded by National Institutes of Health (NIH), award amount at UNO: $417,232, June 18, 2003 - April 31, 2008.
2. Hesham Ali (PI), Zhengxin Chen, Parvathi Chundi and Mark Pauley, "IDeA Networks for Biomedical Research Excellence," joint grant with UNMC, Funded by National Institutes of Health (NIH), award amount at UNO: $1,382,586, June 1, 2004 - May 31, 2009.
3. Hesham Ali (PI) and Zhengxin Chen, "Informatics Center for Life Sciences," joint grant with UNMC, funded by NSF EPSCoR, award amount at UNO: $616,155, Feb 1, 2001 - May 31, 2004.
4. Hesham Ali (PI), Zhengxin Chen, "Nebraska Training Network in Functional Genomics," National Institutes of Health (NIH), joint grant with UNMC, award amount at UNO: $236,753, Sept 1, 2001 - Aug 31, 2004.

Mobile Computing and Wireless Communication

The goal of this project is to build an innovative and comprehensive research and development program leading to solutions for high-speed wireless data network connectivity problems in rural as well as urban Nebraska. A high performance wireless network infrastructure will have a substantial impact on the state of Nebraska in providing the much-needed digital connectivity for agriculture, bio-security, medical, and transportation problems. Our objectives, therefore, include the development of:
     1) A high performance wireless network for supporting research, education and service activities in Nebraska, and
     2) Strategic collaborations of academia and industry working in synergy to solve research and development problems in wireless (particularly in sensor) networks.

Research Grants Awarded

1. Center for Mobile Computing Research, NSF-EPSCoR RII, $500,000, Feb. 2004 - Jan. 2007.
2. Nebraska High Performance Wireless Research and Education Networks, Nebraska Research Initiative (NRI), $681,332, Aug. 2004 - July 2006.

Additional Research Interests

Dr. Ali has published many articles in the areas of algorithmic graph theory, scheduling, parallel computing and fault-tolerant networks. Other areas of research include the development of graph analysis and generation tools and the application of graph theory in parallel computing and VLSI design.