Zoltán Bicskei

University of Turku
Supervisor: Pekka Hänninen
Funding: other
Date: 12/08/2003

Databases and signal analysis as bioinformatical tools for molecular level multidimensional data-analysis for biological and biomedical research

In the research areas of biology and biomedicine functional and structural information about molecules and their interactions are obtained by various means. On the other hand, different instrumental methods are used for obtaining data from the (bio)molecular problem under study whereas modelling produces useful information to predict and explain the practical results. A common property for the study is the fact that the results from different sources are combined often simply on paper. There is a great demand for computational tools to store, access and analyse instrumental, chemical and structural data under a common interface. The goal of this research is to develop such bioinformatical tools.

The Laboratory of Biophysics at the University of Turku has developed new bioanalytical methods by the use of two-photon excitation of fluorescence (1). These methods base on detection of biomolecular binding reactions directly from the reaction vessel. The method, although originally developed for immunoassays, can be used to reveal other types of information from the biomolecular reactions (2), and currently the laboratory work has been extended into studies at cellular level. Work has also been started in collaboration of the Biomathematics Group at the University of Turku and TUCS (TUrku centre for Computer Science) to develop mathematical models for the processes under study.

References:
1.)Pekka Hänninen, Aleksi Soini, Niko Meltola, Juhani Soini, Jori Soukka & Erkki Soini. A new microvolume technique for bioaffinity assays using two-photon excitation. Nature Biotechnology 18(5): 548-550 (2000).
2.)Pekka Hänninen, Matti Waris, Mika Kettunen and Erkki Soini, Reaction kinetics of a two-photon excitation microparticle based immunoassay - from modelling to practice, ChemPhysChem (submitted Sept. 2002).
3.)Juhani T. Soini, Jori M. Soukka, Erkki Soini, & Pekka E. Hänninen, Two-photon excitation microfluorometer for multiplexed single-step bioaffinity assays, Review of Scientific Instruments 73(7): 2680-2685, (2002).