Large-scale computational modeling of the metabolism and evolution of microorganisms

Cherry Auditorium, Kirk Hall

Microorganisms are ubiquitous on Earth and dominate the diversity, productivity, and persistence of various ecosystems. The development of next-generation sequencing and many high-throughput technologies has enabled the large-scale molecular identification of microbial communities. However, today a comprehensive understanding is still lacking about the connections between microbial genome evolution and niche adaptation. This talk will highlight some latest developments in the integrated, large-scale modeling of the metabolism and evolution of microbial species. Examples will also be given to highlight the importance of high-performance computing systems in the analyses of big and heterogeneous biological data.