AsianScientist (Oct. 4, 2013) – A team from Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore has won the top prize of US$1 million in a bioinformatics competition organized by the United States Department of Defense (DOD).
Participants of the competition were required to find a quick and accurate way to identify potentially dangerous organisms in DNA samples.
The researchers, from the Singapore Center on Environmental Life Sciences Engineering (SCELSE), an NTU-led partnership with the National University of Singapore, and from the University of Tuebingen, Germany, were part of the winning team that identified DNA sequences in micro-organisms for clues to potential biological threats.
Graduate student Benjamin Buchfink and visiting Professor Daniel Huson from the University of Tuebingen collaborated with post-doctoral researcher Xie Chao from the Life Sciences Institute at the National University of Singapore on the project. They developed an algorithm that best met the stringent criteria laid out by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency’s (DTRA’s) Algorithm Challenge.
The Algorithm Challenge attracted entries from more than 2,700 individuals from around the world.
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Source: NTU.
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