Research in Industrial Projects for Students: 2001Program

Current year projects and company information

Arete

Company Info:

Arete was founded in 1976 and conducts leading-edge research and development in:

• Sensor hardware technology, data analysis, signal processing, and algorithm development

•  Applied oceanography including experiment design and execution, instrumentation development, and data analysis

• Physics-based modeling, simulation, and high-resolution scene generation;

•  Assessment of the impact of advanced technologies on military capabilities

Project Work Statement

Digital Domain

Company Info:

Digital Domain is currently one of the largest digital studios in the world and hosts a massive integrated production studio that includes divisions for Feature Film Visual Effects, Commercial Production, Music Videos, Location Based Entertainment, Feature Film Development as well as Digital Domain Solutions, which handles Internet, Broadband and Wireless strategies and implementation.

Project Work Statement

HRL

Company Info:

HRL Laboratories (HRL), as it is known today, has a rich reputation for discoveries and innovations since its early roots in 1948 when Howard Hughes created the Electronics and Guided Missile Department (very soon to be known as the Research and Development Laboratories) employing approximately 150 people.

The Hughes Aircraft Company (the trade name under which Hughes Tool Company conducted its aeronautical business) of which HRL was a part was soon to be a subsidiary of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, formed in 1953, for the stated purpose of "the promotion of human knowledge within the field of the basic sciences (principally the field of medical research and medical education) and the effective application thereof for the benefit of mankind." The Medical Institute became a major step toward a philanthropic goal conceived by Howard Hughes many years earlier. 

Today HRL is jointly owned by Raytheon Company and The Boeing Company and provides corporate research and development for both companies.

Project Work Statement

Protein Pathways

Company Info:

Protein Pathways is a bioinformatics company that develops computational methods to identify protein interactions, thereby discovering small molecule drug targets. In this era of full-genome sequencing, thousands of newly sequenced proteins currently have no assigned function and little or no homology to previously characterized proteins. The Company provides missing links in the path from genome sequences to new drugs.

Genome sequences instruct cells how and when to make proteins. The proteins in turn are the active players in the cell. Proteins form the machinery of cells, allow cells to communicate, and can control the growth or death of an organism. Because of their role in cells, almost all drug targets are proteins. Drugs work by binding specifically to a protein, thus changing the protein's function. Extensive knowledge about the function of a protein can guide the selection of targets for pharmaceutical chemists.

Protein Pathways provides a new way of discovering protein function. Previously, the only way to determine a protein function was by sequence similarity to another protein of known function. This bootstrapping approach left many gaps in our understanding. The analysis of genomes by the methods of Protein Pathways fills the gaps by creating extensive networks of interactions between proteins. Human genomic sequence data from Ensembl and expression data from SAGE and NCBI provide some of the data for human drug target discovery. The Company’s algorithms use additional genetic data from 62 sequenced genomes to search for trends and correlations that reveal the interacting partners of a given protein. This set of links suggests functions for previously uncharacterized proteins, as well as novel functions for "known" proteins. The computational technology of Protein Pathways produces reliable information about protein functions, but is much faster and less expensive than traditional experimental methods. The proprietary algorithms were developed at Protein Pathways and at UCLA by the founders of the Company.

Project Work Statement