First Viterbi Symposium
A historic meeting took place at University Park December 15 and 16,
bringing together 80 members of a new breed of scientist from USC
College, MIT and three universities in Israel.
The Viterbi Computational Biology Symposium featured powerhouses in a
20-year-old “new field.” The idea for the symposium came from
Andrew J. Viterbi, a renowned visionary who has worn many hats in his
distinguished career, including “USC Trustee.”
The field encompasses most of the sciences, plus math, computer science
— even business. At USC, the field is referred to as “Molecular
and Computational Biology,” for which a new 125,000 square foot
building is being erected in front of Kaprelian Hall. MIT leans
toward “Systems Biology.” And the Israelis, from Tel Aviv
University, the Technion and Hebrew University, lean toward a
description somewhat in between.
The nine out-of-towners first met for dinner on the eve of the
symposium, sharing ideas and food at a Chinatown restaurant with host
Michael Waterman, University Professor and USC Associates Chair.
The next morning, tingling with expectation, about 70 USC faculty,
students and postdocs crowded into a room at Davidson as the three
groups presented overviews of their approaches to defining and studying
new areas in computation and biology that will take advantage of the
data-rich environment that exists today in the wake of the successful
completion of the Human Genome Project.
The excitement built through Monday and Tuesday as the topics switched
from the overviews to the specifics of a field heavy on math,
computation and genetics. There was a distinct feeling, expressed
freely, of being in on the beginning of something important, but what
is to emerge can’t yet be described.
Viterbi was in regular attendance and at a small speakers dinner hosted
by College Dean Joseph Aoun, said that he was pleased to be a catalyst
for such an event. Viterbi’s academic roots are at MIT, where he
received bachelor and master’s degrees, and USC, where he received a
Ph.D. And as an Italian Jew whose family fled the Fascists in
1939, he has an abiding interest in Israel.
His career is built around the “Viterbi Algorithm, which is central to
digital and wireless communications. In recent years he found
commonality of interest and intent in computational genomics, fostering
and financing scholars in the field.
The group expressed the intent to meet again next year, at MIT.
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