Congratulations to John Lannon

Please join me in congratulating our very own BiRGer John Lannon on being awarded the  Chancellor's Award for Interdisciplinary achievement at the Indiana University Southeast's Conference " Celebrating Achievement"
 

Chancellor's Award for Interdisciplinary achievement
2008	Investigating Alu Distribution by Family Across Human Chromosome Sequences	John Lannon Informatics	Sridhar Ramachandran

Excellent work John!! You make us proud.  We have free coffee in the lab today in celebrating this achievement :). 

Meeting Notes from 04/04/2008

In today's BiRG lab meeting, Shawn introduced the lab to the newly available machines and computer services.

The four new machines have the following specs:

• Dell XPS 420
• Intel Core2 Quad (Q6600) CPU running @ 2.40 GHz
• 3.00 GB of RAM
• 22" wide screen displays
• Windows XP SP2
  

Furthermore, the BiRG server, which is maintained by computer services, can now be accessed by every member of the lab using their university-wide computer services credentials. The server can be used to store presentations, documentation and research materials.

Aside from on campus access, BiRG members can use a PPTP VPN client (via Internet Connect on Mac machines or The New Connection wizard from the Network Connections control panel on Windows XP machines) to access the server from off campus. Each BiRGer has her or his own directory on the server.

Remote Desktop (RDP) access is also available (via VPN or on campus). However, only two users can be connected simultaneously. Be sure to logoff (via the Start Menu) of your RDP session when finished such that other users are not locked out.

BiRG Server:
\\se-cser-info

PPTP VPN Server:
vpn.ius.edu

By next week, the lab will likely be outfitted with several more amenities.

For next Friday's meeting, John Lannon will be presenting his fall research project. Shawn Haynes will be presenting his work on Bioethics. Both will be using this meeting to prepare for the IUS Undergradute Research Conference, which will be held April 17-18 in The Ogle Center.

Our Very own BiRGer -> Dr.Holly in the News

Check out the link below (Scroll down on the page to read about Dr. Hollingsworth)

http://homepages.ius.edu/Horizon/021808P05.pdf

Meeting Minutes from 02/15/2008

Feb 15 BiRG Meeting:

Announcements:
* Next week (2/22) tour of Biology facilities (by John Norman), then to Sitar
* Following week (2/29) Tom will present his lab

Prof. Manwani's presentation on Ayurveda Informatics
ayur - life
veda - knowledge
Turmeric can be anti-septic, anti-cancer, anti-arthritis agent

presentation (Dr. Bhushan Patwardhan, University of Pune)
Overview:
Foundation of modern drugs:
* morphine from poppy
* cocaine from coca
All of these are derived from natural sources

Modern pharmacy industry experiencing innovation deficit
* Pre-clinical and clinical time increasing. Less effective

Ayurveda: discovery engine
* 300 well documented and used medicinal plants, sound philosphical, rational base
* Discovery and development process is reversed : starts with large scale trials (we all eat turmeric)

Ayusoft : Ayurvedic Data warehouse
* Composed of drug Database, disease database, treatment pricinples, diet/lifestyle db
* Language issues. India has 400+ languages. So, texts are scattered and not available in one single language
* Good to know Sankrit

AyuGenomics:
* Classifying human composition, broken down into 15 primary variables. The permutations of these variables makes each person a unique entity

Venter Keeps Himself in The News: Synthetic Genome Created

Wired article detailing the Venter Institute's creation of a long string of synthetic DNA. Next step: synthetic organisms!

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/01/synthetic_genome

Free tuition at Harvard

FYI BiRGers

Harvard University announced over the weekend that from now on undergraduate students from low-income families will pay no tuition. In making the announcement, Harvard's president Lawrence H. Summers said, 'When only 10 percent of the students in Elite higher education come from families in lower half of the income distribution, we are not doing enough. We are not doing enough in bringing elite higher education to the lower half of the income distribution.'

If you know of a family earning less than $60,000 a year with an honor student graduating from high school soon, Harvard University wants to pay the tuition. The prestigious university recently announced that from now on undergraduate students from low income families can go to Harvard for free...no tuition and no student loans!

To find out more about Harvard offering free tuition for families making less than $60,000 a year visit Harvard's financial aid website at:   http://www.fao.fas.harvard.edu or call the school's financial aid office at (617) 495-1581.

Meeting Minutes from 11 January 2008

For this semester, each BiRGer will select and present a research article in her or his informatics area of interest.

As of now, the weekly meeting is set for Fridays at 5pm in the BiRG Lab (LF264).

On Jan. 18, Tom House will present on the nature of his work with Dr. John Doyle: using protein-generated magnetic fields in electronic application.

On Jan. 25th, John Lannon will present the findings of his research project on Alu distribution and discuss its implications and derivative research ideas.

Starting next week, a couple of biology students will be joining the group.