By Ken Garber

The imminent completion of the Human Genome Project has ushered in a new age of biology. But its success has also caused a big problem: an overload of information.

"This enormous amount of data coming out of the Genome Project is, in fact, like drinking from a fire hydrant, for the average researcher," said Genome Project director Francis Collins at a meeting in April. (Collins is on leave from his U-M faculty post in the Department of Human Genetics.) "Bioinformatics is going to be crucial for understanding all this."

The U-M is planning to do its part. A new multidisciplinary program in bioinformatics has been established at the Medical School. Total funding for the first five years: about $14 million.

"That's an awfully good start for a program," says Mike Savageau, chair of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology and interim director for the new program. (A search for permanent director is almost complete.) In addition to all the Medical School departments, many other units have been involved, including the School of Public Health, College of Engineering, the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts, and the Biophysics Research Division.

"It's a huge grassroots effort," says Phil Andrews, professor of biochemistry [see related story]. What is bioinformatics? Savageau defines it as "an emerging field based on the two most revolutionary developments of the past few decades—molecular biology and computer science—with the goal of understanding the integrated behavior of the entire organism."

The traditional laboratory biologist has narrowly focused on one small part of an organism—a hormone, an enzyme, an antibody. Scientists can now view a whole system at once. For example, a chip smaller than a fingernail can display all of the genes turned on at a given time in a given tissue.

"The new approach, that's been made possible by new technologies, means that you can begin to look at it from the top down," Savageau says. "That is, collect systemic data about an organism or cell, then try and deduce the underlying mechanisms that give rise to that behavior."

The U-M's program also responds to a national need for more trained bioinformatics specialists. When approached by biology students about the best job opportunities in coming years, "the first thing out of my mouth is bioinformatics," Francis Collins told atendees at the April meeting. "We are woefully short of having a critical mass of people who understand both biology and computational approaches."

Some important findings have already come out of bioinformatics. Louis Staudt of the National Cancer Institute (NCI), for example, has been able to identify different types of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, a particularly deadly cancer, by studying patient gene expression patterns and identifying which tumors would likely prove resistant to chemotherapy. "This will significantly change our approach to diagnosis," said NCI director Richard Klausner, and it brings the notion of "tailored" cancer therapy—treatment optimized for individual patients—one step closer to reality.

But the big payoff for bioinformatics is down the road. "At this point people are still putting a lot of effort into developing the technology," Savageau says. Funding for the U-M program comes from the Parke-Davis pharmaceutical reseach division of Warner-Lambert ($5 million over five years), a large sum from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and contributions from the U-M Health System.

The Michigan Life Sciences Corridor, the state's $1 billion research initiative funded from its settlement with the tobacco companies, has identified bioinformatics as one of five priority areas, and could also be a source of funds down the road. The Corridor, organized to promote life sciences research and business, was launched this year by the Michigan Economic Development Corp., and includes the U-M, Michigan State University, Wayne State University and the Van Andel Institute in Grand Rapids. U-M President Lee C. Bollinger is a member of the corridor steering committee that will allocate funds on a competitive basis for basic research.