IME Member Dr. G. Christian Overton died at the end of May from complications arising from cardiomyopathy. He was the founding Director of the Center for Bioinformatics at Penn, established in 1997 as an interdisciplinary venture between the Schools of Medicine, Arts and Sciences, and Engineering and Applied Science under the administrative oversight of the IME. He was an Associate Professor in the Department of Genetics, and held a secondary appointment in the Department of Computer and Information Science in the School of Engineering and Applied Science. Chris is internationally recognized as a pioneer in genomic research. He was among the first to recognize the potential impact of computational approaches for solving biological problems. Chris's training in biophysics, developmental biology and computer science, and his deep understanding of biomedical and computational problems, enabled him to establish many exciting research projects, effectively bridging the gap between collaborators in numerous fields. His own research interests focused on problems associated with database integration, genome annotation, gene prediction, and the recognition of regulatory elements within the sea of nucleotides that comprise the human genome. Through his use of advanced computational techniques to help in the construction of genomic databases, Dr. Overton also gained considerable recognition in computer science. The strong center that he and Co-Director Susan Davidson, Warren Ewens and colleagues have developed is one of only a handful of academic centers in Bioinformatics in the world. It will continue to grow as a fitting legacy to Chris.[IME Membership][New Faces at Penn and the IME][Research News][Educational Initiatives][Recent Awards and Honors to IME Members][IME Seminar Series][IME Newsletter Table of Contents][IME Home Page]
