Department of Computational Biology and Lane Center for Computational Biology
Department of Computational Biology and Lane Center for Computational Biology
The Department of Computational Biology (DCB) at Pitt and the Ray and Stephanie Lane Center for Computational Biology (LCCB) at CMU together serve as the administrative homes of the CPCB at the two universities. Dr. Ivet Bahar, the John K. Vries Chair of the DCB, and Dr. Robert Murphy, Director of the LCCB, are the founding directors of the CPCB.
Department of Computational Biology (DCB)
The DCB at Pitt is located on the 3rd floor of the Biomedical Science Tower 3 (BST3), constructed in 2005. BST3 has been designed to promote interdisciplinary research, housing 50 research groups, including basic science departments such as structural biology, neurobiology and computational biology; and research centers or institutes for proteomics, drug discovery, vaccine development, tissue engineering, and nanotechnology. In addition to its ten Core Faculty members, the department has 26 Joint Faculty, 16 postdoctoral fellows, and 17 graduate students currently working with the Core Faculty. The DCB students are enrolled in various doctoral programs, including CPCB, Physics, Molecular Biophysics & Structural Biology, and Biochemistry & Molecular Genetics.
The DCB also organizes the NSF-NIH funded BBSI @ Pitt, a cross-institutional effort, which aims at introducing quantitatively skilled students from many disciplines to the field of computational biology, and enabling them to make more knowledgeable career choices.
Ray and Stephanie Lane Center for Computational Biology (LCCB)
The LCCB at CMU was created in 2007 as the culmination of many years of development and recruiting efforts and with the goal of realizing the potential of machine learning for expanding understanding of complex biological systems. The LCCB is a University-wide effort that is not part of any department or college, and has over 30 core and affiliated faculty members. Its temporary location is in the Mellon Institute building, and it will move to the top floor of the Hillman Building upon its completion in 2010. All students in the CPCB who are supervised by CMU faculty have office space in the Lane Center.
In addition to students and faculty, the Lane Center also houses a prestigious, highly competitive, and well-compensated postdoctoral fellow program, the Lane Fellows in Computational Biology. These fellowships are awarded after nomination by a candidate’s thesis advisor, and after an extensive application and interview process. Three Lane Fellows joined the Center in July 2008 and two more in September 2009, and new Fellows will be named each year. The Fellows will make important contributions to the research and training activities of the CPCB.
Other Relevant Departments, Institutes and Centers
In addition to the DCB and the LCCB, there are a number of other departments, institutes, and research centers that demonstrate how vital the CPCB is to the Pittsburgh area. The list below covers a selection of units with most extensive participation among the CPCB Training Faculty.