History

The Institute for Genomics and Bioinformatics (IGB) was established in January 2001 as an Organized Research Unit of the University of California. The primary mission of the IGB is to foster innovative basic and applied research at the intersection of the life and computational sciences and members of the IGB community are vigorously engaged in collaborative and ground-breaking research. In addition, the IGB is engaged in educating the next generation of researchers and practitioners, as well as in entrepreneurial activities to develop and transition research technologies to widespread and practical application. The Institute periodically participates in programs aimed at bringing new bioinformatics faculty to the campus under IGB’s stewardship. Finally, the IGB is engaged in multiple outreach and diversity-promoting activities and periodically organized conferences, symposia, workshops and other events for the UCI and the broader community. The Institute reports directly to the UCI Vice Chancellor for Research, in keeping with its interdisciplinary nature, and is currently housed in the Information and Computer Science II building of the UC Irvine campus. The Institute is currently led by Director Pierre Baldi and Associate Director Xiaohui Xie of the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences.

Since its inception, the IGB has:

• Attracted over 44M in direct external funding primarily from the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and DARPA.
• Directly trained and supported 179 graduate students, 43 postdoctoral fellows, 11 Professional Research Scientists, 10 Project Scientists, 31 Research Specialists, and hosted many scientists from foreign countries.
• Organized many conferences, symposia, and other events.
• Created several successful startups.