Speaker: Mihai Pop, University of Maryland
Abstract: Inexpensive high-throughput sequencing technologies have made it feasible to measure the genomic composition of the complex mixtures of microbes that inhabit our world and our bodies. Metagenomic studies made possible by these new technologies have started to demonstrate the important roles microbes play in our health and that of the earth’s ecosystem. These studies have also started to challenge our ability to computationally analyze the resulting data.
The computational challenges are in part due to the large volumes of data being generated, and in part due to the specific characteristics of metagenomic data and analytical needs in this field. In my talk I will highlight some of the computational challenges and opportunities afforded by this new field, and describe some recent results developed in my lab in the context of human-associated microbial communities.