UB faculty member Jaroslaw Zola was a member of a working group that identified challenges, risks and rewards summarized in a recently published report on big data in the life sciences.

The report, "National and Transnational Security Implications of Big Data in the Life Sciences," is the result of a yearlong study organized jointly by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the FBI and the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute.

The group aimed to identify the current state of “big data” and analytics, the benefits and risks of big data in the life sciences to national security, and solutions for addressing exploitation of system vulnerabilities or intentional use for harmful or criminal purposes. The report is geared toward policy makers.

The working group included experts in computer science, data science, life sciences, biological security, data security, cyber security, law enforcement and homeland security from U.S. government agencies, intergovernmental organizations, academia, private industry and the amateur science community.

Zola, an assistant professor of computer science and engineering, and research assistant professor in biomedical informatics, joined the UB faculty in 2014. His research focuses on development of novel parallel, high-performance and scalable algorithms and techniques to address challenges in data-driven science and engineering.

In particular, he is interested in applications in computational biology and life sciences.

In addition to serving on the joint big data working group, Zola is a founding co-chair of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) International Workshop on Big Data in Life Sciences.