The research groups of the University of Bari “A. Moro” active in the field of Bioinformatics since long have been engaged in various research activities aimed at the creation of specialized databases of biomolecular data and associated retrieval systems, and at the development of algorithms and software for their analysis with particular reference to advanced tools for the analysis of data generated by high-throughput sequencing platforms.

The main research areas include:

• Development of bioinformatics and computational methods for the analysis of NGS data, for the assembly and annotation of genomic sequences and for the characterization of biomarkers associated to human diseases.
• Creation and management of specialized databases of biomolecular data.
• Study of RNA editing mechanisms in animal genomes and the correlation with human diseases.
• Study of the gene expression profile of mRNA, ncRNAs and miRNAs in normal and pathological conditions, with particular reference to aging-related neurodegenerative disorders.
• Study of the microbiome of clinical and environmental samples by metagenomic approaches.
• In silico analysis of mitochondrial genomes in human populations and their association with mitochondrial-related human diseases.
• Development of compilations of NumtS sequences (Nuclear mitochondrial Sequences) of eukaryotic organisms whose genome was completely sequenced.