Researchers Develop New Computational Tool To Study Genes

Two Texas A&M University researchers have developed a computational tool that will help scientists more accurately study complex units of clustered genes, called operons, in bacteria. The tool, which allows scientists to analyze many bacterial genomes at once, is more accurate than previous methods because it starts from experimentally validated data instead of from statistical predictions, they say. The researchers hope their tool will lead to a better understanding of the complex genetic mechanisms involved in a cell’s functioning.

Sing-Hoi Sze, Texas A&M computer science, biochemistry and biophysics researcher, and computer science researcher Qingwu Yang, detail their computational tool and its implications in their paper published in the journal Genome Research.

Full story by Keith Randall at Texas A&M News and Information