The Bioinformatics Centre at the Faculty of Science, UHK, wants to train a new generation of experts who will also study in Barcelona and Berlin

The Faculty of Science already has the basic building stones for the successful development of this field of study, as it runs a department of biology, mathematics and information science, which makes it a perfect place to start a more comprehensive interdisciplinary cooperation,” Dr Radka Symonová, the project researcher, explains and goes on to add that information science has become an indispensible tool for contemporary research in biology and medicine.

 “Contemporary biologists must have a comprehensive knowledge of informatics in order to succeed. They must be able to work with huge datasets and must be able to process the information to produce meaningful results. Thanks to bioinformatics, we may study evolutionary changes in the genome of tens or soon hundreds of species, and with bioinformatics and statistical methods at our disposal, we are now able to gain a much better understanding of genome patterns and mechanisms. Medical testing procedures have also become much more efficient thanks to the revolution in bioinformatics.”

The Bioinformatics Centre has three strategic international partners and has managed to establish close cooperation between the University of Hradec Králové and the Faculty of Pharmacy of Charles University in Hradec Králové, which is the strategic national partner of the project.

“Our foreign partners include two private research institutions, Transmitting Science, which is based in Barcelona, and Berlin-based Physalia Courses, both of which provide reputable bioinformatics education and current research services. Our third international partner is the University of Innsbruck,” Radka Symonová adds.

In light of international cooperation, not only established researchers will profit from foreign study stays, students will too; they will be able to apply bioinformatics methods in their final theses and in their future research. The first group of students travelled abroad in the Autumn of 2019. The next group is to set out in the Spring of 2020. “We must first bring up the “zero” generation, which should enable us to offer courses to other prospective students and apply for full accreditation of the new study program.” Thanks to a grant from the Hradec Králové Region, two students (from UHK and FaF) were able to attend an intensive 14-day course in genomics and bioinformatics in Český Krumlov, which was organised by the world’s leading universities (from USA and EU).

The Bioinformatics Centre in Hradec Králové and the various opportunities available for future cooperation were introduced during Code Week 2019; it was organised by the Faculty of Science of the University of Hradec Králové and Faculty of Pharmacy of Charles University in Hradec Králové in October 2019. The event entailed lectures and workshops that presented the field of bioinformatics and the specific methods used.  This was followed by Python Week in November 2019.