Bioinformatics and Computational Engineering for Bioremediation

Bioremediation is the use of microbes to contain, eliminate, or decrease hazardous and radioactive wastes to environmentally safe levels. It promises a much more cost-effective approach for the cleanup of nation's many contaminated sites. It is also a highly interdisplinary area which requires the integrated understanding from the molecular-level microbiology, to decision-level engineering design. Bioinformatics and Computational Science & Engineering play a cruical role on this multiscale/multilevel understanding.

Bioremediation is one of the central pieces in DOE's Office of Biological and Environmental Research's programs. On March 30, 2000, the DOE's Office of Science submitted a plan for scientific computing to the Energy & Water Development Subcommittees of the Appropriations Committees of the U.S. Congress. The plan, titled Scientific Discovery through Advanced Computing, outlined a five-year program to develop the Scientific Computing Software and Hardware Infrastructure needed to use terascale computers to advance its research programs in basic energy sciences, biological and environmental research, fusion energy sciences, and high energy and nuclear physics.