Bioinformatics Core at AGERI Present and Future

2. Bioinformatics Core at AGERI Present and Future By Osama A. Momtaz Director Genetic Engineering Research Institute, Agricultural research Center, Ministry of Agriculture Egypt

3. Establishment • The Agricultural Genetic Engineering Research Institute (AGERI) represents a vehicle within the agricultural arena for the transfer and application of genetic engineering technology. • The institute started in 1989 as a UNDP funded project called the National Agricultural Genetic Engineering Laboratory (NAGEL).

4. Establishment • Agricultural Genetic Engineering Research Institute (AGERI) • represents a vehicle within the agricultural arena for the transfer and application of biotechnology and genetic engineering future sciences.

5. COMPUTER FACILITIES BIOINFORMATICS SERVICES FULL INTERNET SERVICES TECHNICAL SUPPORT The BioInformatics & Networks Dept. Provides the information technology infrastructure to support the research activities carried at AGERI http//www.ageri.sci.eg

6. Bioinformatics Core A N e w E r a As a new era of biotechnology is emerging, a high-throughput instruments now is available to help decipher complex biological systems. It’s a cornerstone for any successful scientific organization dealing with biotechnology to have a good Bioinformatics core to decipher and interpretate information embedded in complex biological systems specially as it continue to grow.

7. Vision We envision that our program will develop into a research-based and educational hub in AGERI as will as border region to provide bioinformatics and computational support for research community and perform training for bioinformatics, through our Bioinformatics Core.

8. 1990 2010 2020 Scientific Development Institutional Development Phase I Phase II Scientific Development • AGERI has become the premier biotechnology research institution in Egypt by developing a highly trained research staff through: • international education and training programs • recruitment of top researchers from Egypt’s best universities • collaboration with international agricultural biotechnology firms • AGERI is now entering a new phase in its development focusing on establishing a new bioinformatics core to help decipher complex biological systems.

9. Current situation “Hardware” • Bioinformatics department now has: • Three servers hosting two webpage • AGERI web page: http://www.ageri.sce.eg • ARDF web page: http://www.ardf.sci.eg

10. Current situation “Software” • Bioinformatics Department is using several type of software: • E.g. R-pakage, Emboss, genepix, Hex, studan package, PERL, Diversity database, Bio-linux, mapmaker, WEKA, velvet, SPDBV.

11. Current situation “Hardware” • The three server is also used to e.g. analyze microarray data, Statistical analysis for several experiment, clustering several type of experimental data. • We also have an 80 core cluster computer to deal with NGS data generated from our Solid sequencing facility.

12. Using I&C Technology: providing platform • Any fields, really, but newer biological fields are more interesting Bioinformatics DNA computing (Bioprocessors) • Special fields of interest Genome Annotations … Molecular breeding simulation programs … • Target output: ICT show case, “infrastructure” for other research centers, and training

13. Future Prespictive • To decipher and interpretate information embedded in complex biological systems bioinformatics department looking forward to have another cluster computer allocated only to data analysis. • Also bioinformatics department is looking forward to receive some essential soft ware to help in data analysis e.g. CLC genome work bench, Geneious.