K-State engineer receives NSF grant to enhance cybersecurity for biological data infrastructure
Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2024
MANHATTAN — A Kansas State University engineer is working to provide robust cybersecurity tools for artificial intelligence applications in bioinformatics through the creation of an automated framework designed to ensure accurate and secure data.
Xiaolong Guo, assistant professor in the Mike Wiegers Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, has received a nearly $560,000 National Science Foundation grant to enhance the security of AI applications used to discover and optimize antimicrobial peptides, or AMPs. These peptides are essential for improving food safety, livestock health and agricultural productivity.
"Traditional methods of discovering and optimizing AMPs are costly and slow," Guo said. "By developing an automated framework, this project ensures the accuracy and security of AMP data, reducing the reliance on expensive and time-consuming lab experiments."
The three-year project, "CICI: UCSS: Safeguarding AI in Bioinformatics: Enhancing Cybersecurity in Biological Data Infrastructure," is funded through the NSF's Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure. Guo is the principal investigator. Yonghui Li, associate professor in the grain science and industry department, and Kaichen Yang, assistant professor at Michigan Technological University, are co-principal investigators.
The project focuses on creating a secure, open-source dataset and an online platform for evaluating AMP data security, promoting a culture of security-mindedness within the scientific community and ensuring reliable computational predictions.
Along with its goal of making security checks easier and more efficient through automation, Guo said the project aims to use the online platform to raise awareness about the need to secure data while promoting community engagement and education on cybersecurity.
"This will help protect important research in bioinformatics from accidental mistakes or cyber threats," he said. "We hope our research will make future collaborations in this crucial field safer and more reliable."
