More than fifty years ago, the eminent mathematician G.H. Hardy wrote in A Mathematician's Apology, that real mathematics is that "which has permanent aesthetic values. It is what is commonplace and dull that counts for practical life." In recent years, no mathematically related endeavor has done more to turn Hardy's thought on it's head than bioinformatics, and no application of mathematics to practical real life has been more lively than the Human Genome project.

Bioinformatics is the interdisciplinary science of organizing and analyzing very large (terascopic) biological data, and interpreting biological information obtained from such data. It is a discipline in which the template of abstract mathematical ruminations has been replaced by the alphabets of life -the nucleotides {A, C, G, T} and the twenty amino acids, without loss of aesthetics, but with the fulfilling thoughts that mathematics can have a direct and immediate impact on the understanding of life at its most fundamental level.

Bioinformatics is an interdisciplinary study that has been inspired by the Human Genome Project. It has synergized the research interaction amongst mathematical scientists, biological scientists and engineers. The explosion in related research activities from several genome studies has created a gold mine of databases whose volume and structure pose challenging computational, statistical and mathematical research problems. The organization, modeling, analysis and interpretation of these data demand a new generation of scientists. Among the chief interests in bioinformatics research is the problem of turning genome sequence data into useful information about gene function, protein structure, molecular evolution, disease mechanisms, and drug targets. In response to this challenge, research institutions and universities throughout the world, and in particular, the United States and Europe, are creating academic units for interdisciplinary research involving molecular biology, computer science, and statistics. Such units include those at Harvard, Cornell, Stanford, Duke, Berkeley, University of Washington in Seattle, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Texas A & M, Iowa State University, North Carolina State University, to name a few.

At the University of Memphis there is the W. H. Feinstone Center for Genomic Research, currently housed in the Life Sciences building, headed by Dr. Thomas Sutter, the Feinstone Chair of Excellence in functional genomics and Professor of Microbiology and Molecular Cell Sciences (MMCS). The facilities housed in the center include automated instruments for microarray analysis, oligonucleotide synthesis, DNA sequencing, peptide synthesis, and molecular separations. At the present time, the Division of Computer Science administers a concentration in bioinformatics, initiated by Giri Narasinham, within the Computer Science Division, in the Department of Mathematical Sciences.

Today we are working on a new proposal to expand the scope of the bioinformatics program at the university through a degree program in Bioinformatics. The primary objective of a bioinformatics degree program will be to provide cutting-edge skills in information technology to students with background in the biological sciences, mathematics, statistics or computer science, with the goal of making them employable in the bioinformatics and medical informatics industry.

Expertise in bioinformatics requires integrated knowledge of modern biochemistry and molecular biology, as well as the ability to use the techniques of computer science, information technology, statistics and mathematics. Since very few students with a Bachelor's Degree will have all these skills, the mission of the proposed program is to achieve the following goals:

To provide a multi disciplinary training to students in preparation for employment in the biotechnology industry, research laboratory or doctoral research in bioinformatics by providing:
1. a fundamental understanding of molecular biology,
2. the quantitative skills of computer science, statistics and mathematics that are necessary for computational biology.

Students entering the program with background in biology will acquire computational and statistical skills, and integrate these skills into their knowledge and use of biological sciences.

Those with computer science, mathematics or statistics first degrees will acquire fundamental knowledge of molecular biology, while getting an education in the application of computational and statistical tools to molecular biology.

All students will acquire the capacity to use a wide rage of bioinformatics software and be proficient programmers, with the ability to create their own software packages.

All students will develop problem solving skills needed for employment in biotechnology industries and research establishments.

Until recently there were very few programs of this kind in the country, and none in the south. The proposed new degree would be a major academic attraction in the Mid-South region. In particular, the several large medical centers in Memphis would be a source of students, jobs, internships, research collaborations and problem-solving opportunities. The program will be linked to the outreach activities of the Feinstone Center for Genomic Research as well as to programs under development within The FedEx Emerging Technology Institute, and ongoing parallel research efforts that involve several faculty from the departments of Mathematical Sciences, Electrical Engineering, Physics, and Microbiology and Molecular Cell Sciences (MMCS). The proposed program will also complement the expertise produced by the biomedical engineering and computational Chemistry programs on campus.