Computational Biology

09/14/2021 - For decades, computer chips have gotten denser, faster and more energy efficient. But in recent years, those improvements have slowed to a crawl.Yet some of the most exciting new applications engineers are exploring — self-driving cars, microscopic robots to diagnose and treat diseases inside the human body, and systems collecting environmental data for battlefield awareness or public health forecasting — need fast, compact, energy-efficient computer chips that can be integrated directly into these systems, rather than relying on connecting to supercomputers far away.

11/03/2015 - There are few things as full of anxiety, heartbreak, and anguish as finding out that you or someone you love has cancer. Unfortunately, it’s not at all uncommon. By the American Cancer Society’s estimates it is expected that in the year 2015 alone, there will be 1.6 million new cancer diagnoses and nearly 600,000 deaths—or roughly 1,600 people every day. But statistics are hardly necessary to realize the enormity of the problem. So far, the road to a cure has been long and complicated and with what’s seemed like no end in sight—until recently.

10/29/2014 - Using a host of methodologies, including a new statistical method developed at The University of Texas at Austin, an international collaboration of researchers have completed a large-scale DNA study that reveals important details about key transitions in the evolution of plant life on our planet.