In recent years, biology has stepped into the big data era. New technologies produce unprecedented amount of information: sequenced genomes, gene expression data, proteomics etc. Effective use of these data richness is a major challenge in current biology. Computational biology copes with this challenge by the collaborative work of biologists, computer scientists, engineers and mathematicians. Together, computational biologists aim to create better and more comprehensive models of biological systems. Ben-Gurion University of the Negev meets the computational biology challenge in three fronts: first and foremost, the university offers four educational tracks to train the new generation of computational biologists, fluent in both biology and computation; second, a growing number of scientific groups focus on computational biology in their research; and finally, the Bioinformatics Core Facility makes bioinformatics accessible for experimental groups from Health and Life Sciences.

Educational tracks

Ben-Gurion University of the Negev offers four B.Sc. programs that combine Life Sciences and Computer Sciences. The bioinformatics track (Computer Sciences), and the biophysics/bioinformatics track (Chemistry) are more focused on the Computer Sciences aspects, whereas the computational biology track (Life Sciences) and Biodata track (Life Sciences + Statistics) emphasize biology. For more details on the Bioinformatics and Biophysics/Bioinformatics tracks, contact Chen Keasar. For more details on the computational biology track, contact Tal Shay. For more details on the Biodata track, contact Shai Pilosof.