Universite de Montreal awards the first Ph.D. in bioinformatics in Canada
Dr Permal's work on the 3D structure of RNA virus genomes was funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. The results, obtained using tools that were developed at LBIT, revealed the existence of structural motifs that are essential to the survival of the hepatitis B virus, the A-type influenza virus and the bovine immunodeficiency virus. These motifs constitute novel therapeutic targets and could eventually be used to develop more efficient antivirals.
Bioinformatics is a relatively young field of multidisciplinary research that brings together biologists and computer scientists in an effort to model living structures and decipher biological information. Starting in the 1990's, this research field grew considerably as a result of the huge amount of data generated by the human genome project. The Universite de Montreal was the first Canadian university to offer both undergraduate and graduate programs in bioinformatics.
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