Genomic Signal Processing: Computational Techniques for Understanding Genomes

The last decade has seen a big spurt in the generation of genomic data, and it is no longer feasible to manually process the data. On the other hand, genomic data sets are large enough to render many traditional computational techniques infeasible on the fastest computers. Genomic signal processing is a set of techniques that were invented for processing signals (including sound, images and video) that have proved to be very useful in processing genomic data. In this talk, I will describe some work going on at York University in this area and explain how genomic signal processing has proved useful for exon prediction, reading frame shift detection, detection of repeats in genomes and detection of retroviruses in host genomes. This talk will also highlight some challenges in interdisciplinary research and the application of computer science and engineering to diverse application areas.