BCBLab, a student-led consulting service in the bioinformatics and computational biology program, has invited big names in from the bioinformatics field for seminars this semester.

The bioinformatics and computational biology program at Iowa State is an interdisciplinary science that combines aspects of biology, computer science, statistics and mathematics, said Karin S. Dorman. Dorman is a faculty member in the statistics department, mentor of BCBLab and associate chairwoman of BCB graduate program.

BCBLab is a consulting service under the BCB program. Priyanka Surana, graduate student and administrator of BCBLab, said that BCBLab was established in 2006 by students to help life science researchers on campus with their computational needs. The professors receive volunteer help from students in BCBLab.

“Most importantly, students learn something new,” Surana said. “BCB is a wide field. … It helps the professors and the students learn something new. It’s a win-win situation.”

The other aspect of BCBLab is educational. This semester, the group is holding a 12-week seminar series with four external speakers invited by BCBLab. Trish Stauble, coordinator of the BCB program, said that one of the speakers, Pierre Baldi, an author of several books in bioinformatics, doesn’t like to say no to students who invite him.

“We’re so glad the students were able to get Dr. Baldi’s participation in this seminar series,” Stauble said. “His April 16 seminar will be quite a capstone event to the seminar series.”

Reinhard Laubenbacher’s seminar start at 5:15 p.m. Wednesday in room 1414 of the Molecular Biology building. Laubenbacher is a professor of mathematics at Virginia Tech and director of Education and Outreach at the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute. He will present on cancer systems biology.

Both an overview and follow-up seminar opportunity will take place for each invited speaker in this seminar series. The follow-up discussion for the Computational Biomodeling and System Biology area will be led by Ali Berens, BCB student in Amy Toth’s lab, at 5 p.m. next Tuesday in room 1102 of the Molecular Biology building.

The overview will introduce the field to a wider university community. The follow-up seminar will include reviewing speakers’ papers to increase understanding of the seminar’s bioinformatics area. The seminar will be free and open to everyone. People from outside of this discipline are welcome to attend the seminar series and learn what BCB is about. According to Dorman and Stauble, both faculty and students in the BCB program and anybody who is doing biological research will be interested in the series of seminars.

For information about more speakers and the schedule, visit www.lab.bcb.iastate.edu/seminars.