Combinatorial mathematics will help unlock the secrets of emerging chemical and biological technologies of the future, according to a University of Queensland scientist.
Mathematics Department Research Fellow Dr Darryn Bryant is a combinatorial mathematician providing the theoretical underpinnings for several new biotechnology projects.
"New applications for combinatorial mathematics are being found all the time," he said. "There are potential future applications in areas such as clone library screening and improved drug design and synthesis techniques."
One of seven winners of the inaugural University of Queensland Foundation Research Excellence Awards, Dr Bryant specialises in developing graph decomposition techniques and applying combinatorial methods in other scientific disciplines.
Combinatorial graph theory is a modern branch of mathematics with a diverse range of applications including computer design, communications networks, and in timetabling and scheduling problems.
"Graph decomposition involves studies of interesting arrangements and patterns of configurations within a combinatorial graph," Dr Bryant said. "The challenging part is dealing with the enormous number of possible combinations that arise, and in discovering methods for finding the desired combinations amongst the billions.
"I'm extremely happy about the award, and I'll use the $60,000 funding to appoint a postdoctoral research fellow and support necessary computing resources. Computational techniques are a necessary tool for sifting through billions of possible combinations to find what you're after."
One aspect of Dr Bryant's research is applying combinatorial techniques in a developing DNA sequencing technology called Sequencing by Hybridization (or SBH). Conventional DNA sequencing is a laborious procedure. Scientists are seeking ways to greatly increase throughput in DNA sequencing approaches and decrease costs to advance the Human Genome Project, an international effort aimed at mapping the estimated 80,000 genes that determine each human being. The Human Genome Project began in 1990 to map all human chromosomes and ultimately determine the sequence of all three billion base pairs within human DNA. Base pairs are the chemical building blocks of genes and DNA. One gene may be made up of tens of thousands of base pairs.
The Human Genome Project is the flagship for exploring the genetic basis of life and represents one of the most exciting and important scientific projects in history.
Dr Bryant is working on Sequencing by Hybridization which involves the simultaneous determination of subsequences within a DNA fragment in a single experiment.
"Reconstructing the entire sequence of the DNA fragment from the determined constituent subsequences can be represented and studied using combinatorial graph theory," he said.
"We will be looking at evaluating the effectiveness of various approaches to SBH. Biological and chemical research on SBH is progressing rapidly but the accompanying mathematics has not yet been studied very thoroughly. There is a lot of work to be done before we understand fully how SBH reconstruction is going to work and how effective the techniques are going to be."
Dr Bryant has attracted external research support totalling $750,000 in the form of four Australian Research Council (ARC) large grants and an ARC Postdoctoral Research Fellowship.
He was awarded the 1995 Kirkman Medal: an international award which "recognises outstanding achievements by members of the Institute of Combinatorics and its applications in the early stages of their research careers".
Dr Bryant has published 55 refereed manuscripts in a wide variety of international journals including Algebra Universalis, The Journal of Combinatorial Theory and The Journal of Graph Theory..
He has been co-inventor with Dr Matt Trau of the Chemistry Department for a PCT international patent lodged in November 1998 and a second, provisional patent expected to be lodged by November 1999.
Dr Bryant received his Bachelor of Science (graduated 1987), Master of Scientific Studies (1990) and PhD (1993) from the University of Queensland.
He joined the Department as a casual tutor in 1988 and was made a research officer in 1993. He was an ARC postdoctoral fellow between 1996 and 1998.
