U. of Illinois plans center focused on gene data

URBANA - The University of Illinois and the Mayo Clinic will use a $9.3 million federal grant to set up a new research center focused on data analysis and health care.

The university said Monday the grant from the National Institutes of Health will be used to create one of several new Centers of Excellence for Big Data Computing. The center will be on the university's Urbana-Champaign campus.

Officials of the university's Institute for Genomic Biology say the center will try to create an analytical tool for biomedical researchers to examine gene-based data.

The Institute for Genomic Biology and university's Department of Computer Science, Coordinated Science Laboratory, College of Engineering and National Center for Supercomputing Applications will all be involved with the center.