The State Government of Western Australia, through its Centres of Excellence in Science and Innovation Program has agreed to fund the Centre for Computational Systems Biology as an adjunct to the ARC Centre of Excellence in Plant Energy Biology.

The Centre for Computational Systems Biology will include a high-performance computing cluster consisting of a multi-node rack of Linux servers and associated storage and backup facilities. This cluster will handle the Centre’s databases and will run specialist applications for treatment of Centre data. The cluster will be used to pre-treat and format data for work at the Western Australian Supercomputing Program (WASP) based at UWA. The WASP facility will be used for custom-built ultra-high-performance applications needed for analysing and visualizing high-throughput genomics data.

Initially, the Centre for Computational Systems Biology has 3 postgraduate positions, including one at a senior level, to kick-start the creation of an ambitious systems biology group with the drive to expand by the recruitment of students and further postgraduates. Recruitment of personnel for the Centre will begin in early 2007.

Systems biology requires a new breed of biologists, well versed in computational techniques, statistics and mathematics as well as biology. Our research will attract good students and young researchers keen to learn modern functional and computational genomics approaches.

Joint Research Laboratory in Genomics and Nutriomics

Zhejiang University (ZJU), China

Plant Energy Biology has entered into an exciting new joint laboratory collaboration with The College of Life Sciences at Zhejiang University, China. Opened in March 2006, our joint laboratory aims to further strengthen our Centre’s excellence in functional genomics of Arabidopsis with the complementary excellence in the functional genomics of rice at Zhejiang University.

In the first six months we have established facilities for gene expression analysis and rice transformation within the joint laboratory and we are currently recruiting a number of research students, PhD and project students, to undertake research studies in the joint laboratory.

Future Directions

It is envisaged that 2007 will see several undergraduate and post-graduate students recruited to carry out research in the joint laboratory. Our joint laboratory will also be a focus for students undertaking studies for a new joint degree offered by UWA and ZJU in plant sciences.

Joint Laboratory Opening

Pictured (from left): Professor Huixia Shou, Ms Jan Stewart, Mr Jianmin Ding, Prof George Stewart (Dean, Faculty Life and Physical Sciences UWA), Prof Jun Zhu (Vice President, Zhejiang University), Professor Barry Marshall (Nobel Laureate, Medicine and Physiology 2006), Dr Adrienne Marshall, Professor Jim Whelan, Cathryn Hlavaka (Australian Government, Australian Education International, Consul Education, Science and Training), Prof Wu Ping (Executive Dean, College of Life Sciences, ZJU), Dr Jianzhong Shou (Associate Dean of the college of Life Sciences, ZJU).