Biological Sciences

Biological Sciences icon

Ohio’s bioscience researchers are leveraging the resources of the Ohio Supercomputer Center to gather and analyze massive amounts of genetic, molecular and environmental data to better understand human physiology, individualize diagnoses and treat diseases.

Immune-Engineering

Emily Miraldi, assistant professor in the Divisions of Immunobiology and Biomedical Informatics at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, Department of Pediatrics at University of Cincinnati School of Medicine, leads an “immune-engineering” research group that uses mathematical modeling of the immune system to predict immune responses and understand disease.

Computational Chemistry

Luiz Oliveira teaches the foundations of chemistry to undergraduate students at Mount Vernon Nazarene University. By participating in Oliveira’s research, which draws on the resources of the Ohio Supercomputer Center (OSC), students gain experience equivalent to completing an extra course in computational chemistry.

Structural Biology

A visualization of myosin motors walking on filamentous actin tracks.

After Krishna Chinthalapudi joined The Ohio State University College of Medicine as an assistant professor, the college notified him that he could make use of the computational power of the Ohio Supercomputer Center (OSC) for his research program.

Artificial Intelligence

Drug discovery

Xia Ning has a large portfolio of research projects at The Ohio State University that focus on understanding how artificial intelligence can be used to solve issues in health care. 

Discovering new drugs to treat disease is one of Ning’s goals. Traditional research methods, which call for lengthy trials with animal models, have disadvantages. 

Ecological Networks

Pollinator community

With a focus on plant and pollinator species, Colin Campbell, associate professor of physics at the University of Mount Union, studies how these groups interact with one another. Some interactions are mutualistic, where both species benefit, but other interactions are only beneficial for one species.

Plant Biology

Scientists know that plants emit chemicals into the soil to communicate information to other plants. These chemical messages, sent through fungal networks, may warn plants to defend against threats in their environment or to stop encroaching on another plant’s space. 

Enhancing Analysis

Enhancing Analysis

The Ohio State University Molecular and Cellular Imaging Center (MCIC) is directed by Tea Meulia and serves as a shared technology laboratory to facilitate research in microscopy, genomics and bioinformatics. Meulia connected with the Ohio Supercomputer Center as she realized the volumes of data they generated and processed required additional computational power.

COVID-19 Polarization

COVID-19 Polarization

COVID-19 quickly became a politically polarized public health crisis, and Skyler Cranmer, the Carter Phillips and Sue Henry Associate Professor of Political Science in Ohio State’s College of Arts and Sciences, wanted to see if this was apparent on Twitter. Through OSC, Cranmer and his team studied the political division around the topic based on tweets.

Pandemic Modeling

Pandemic Modeling

Wasiur KhudaBukhsh, a president’s postdoctoral scholar at the Mathematical Biosciences Institute at The Ohio State University, was part of a team called upon by the Ohio Department of Health to help model the COVID-19 pandemic. With help from OSC resources, the team was able to provide models for Governor DeWine's daily press conferences. 

Data Consolidation

Bryan Carstens examines specimens in the lab.

Ohio State University Professor Bryan Carstens spends his time researching biology and genetics and often runs across immense data sets that are hard to navigate. Carstens worked with the Ohio Supercomputer Center to build connections between databases for easier analysis and access. 

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