Mission
The mission of the Bioinformatics in Biodefense Career Development Program is to prepare students for long-term employment in positions relevant to homeland security through competitive undergraduate scholarships and graduate fellowships, didactic instruction, mentored broad-based interdisciplinary research training, short-term internship and one-year service commitment at external biodefense facilities.

http://compbio.jsums.edu/projects/bbcdp

Current Participants

• Undergraduate
o Shyretha B.
o Donee’ M.
o Shelton G.
o Jessica B.
o Gabrielle C.

• Graduate (PhD)
o Shaneka S.

• Graduate (Masters)
o Jennifer S.
o Demareo W.

• One Year Service Commitment
o Juanquina T.
o Cynthia J.

Didactic Instruction
• Infusion of Biodefense Topics into Curriculum
o Avian Flu
o Multi-Year Trends of West Nile Virus Infections in United States
o Emerging and Reemerging Global Infectious Diseases
• Development of Introduction to Bioinformatics course

• Talks by Experts from DHS Centers of Excellence & Laboratories
o Food Defense
o Foreign Animal Zoonotic Disease Defense
o DHS Annual University Network Summit on Research and Education

• Training on Bioinformatics Protocols
o Functional Relatedness of Genomes
o Sequence and Phylogenetic Analysis
o Text Mining Biomedical Literature and Online News Reports

Mentored Broad-Based Interdisciplinary Research
The Bioinformatics in Biodefense Career Development Program leverages the research capabilities at the College of Science, Engineering & Technology to provide broad-based interdisciplinary research to students.

The research prepares students for workforce in Biodefense Technology Areas: Agricultural Security; Biological Threat Characterization; Bioforensics Operations; Biosecurity; Knowledge Management and Dissemination; Law Enforcement; Sensors and Signatures; Surveillance and Response; and Systems Engineering and Analysis

Driving Bioinformatics Research Projects
• Functional Relatedness of Genomes of Bacteria Genera with Pathogenic Species
• Distinctive Features in Sequences of Universal Stress Protein Family from Pathogenic and Non-Pathogenic Bacterial Species
• Binary State Access and Synthesis of Biological Information on Bacterial Pathogens
• Automated Text Analysis of Online News Reports on Disease Outbreaks
• Multi-Year Trends of Incidence of West Nile virus Human Infections in Mississippi and its Neighboring States

Short-Term Summer Internship (10-12 weeks)
2008 Program
• Week 1-8 : Data Sciences Training and Internship
o Multimodal Information Access and Synthesis Center, UIUC
• Week 9: Visual Analytics Training Workshop
o Purdue University Visualization and Analytics Center (PURVAC)
• Week 10: Tour of Homeland Security Affiliated Facilities
o Center for Natural Disasters, Coastal Infrastructure and Emergency Management at Jackson State University
o National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center (NBACC)
One-Year Paid Service Commitment

• DHS requires program to develop strategy for students to seek and acquire Homeland Security Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (HS-STEM) Employment
• One Year Paid Service Commitment not funded through the grant provided to the University by DHS
• Full-time Service during or immediately after completion of scholarship/fellowship
• Options
o Three trimesters
o Two semesters and a summer session
o Four summer sessions over consecutive years
o One continuous year.

• Two Students are now placed for One-Year Service Commitment
o Juanquina Thomas – National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center, Frederick MD
o Cynthia Jeffries – Biosciences Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge TN

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