We review the establishment of computational biology in Greece and Cyprus from its inception to date and issue recommendations for future development.We compare output to other countries of similar geography, economy, and size-based on publication counts recorded in the literature-and predict future growth based on those counts as well as national priority areas.Our analysis may be pertinent to wider national or regional communities with challenges and opportunities emerging from the rapid expansion of the field and related industries.Our recommendations suggest a 2-fold growth margin for the 2 countries, as a realistic expectation for further expansion of the field and the development of a credible roadmap of national priorities, both in terms of research and infrastructure funding.

Motivation: The tyrosine kinase 2 protein (Tyk2), encoded by the TYK2 gene, has a crucial role in signal transduction and the pathogenesis of many diseases. A single nucleotide polymorphism of the TYK2 gene, SNP rs34536443, is of major importance, since it has been shown to confer protection against various, mainly, autoimmune diseases. This polymorphism results in a Pro to Ala change at amino acid position 1104 of the encoded Tyk2 protein that affects its enzymatic activity. However, the details of the underlined mechanism are unknown. To address this issue, in this study, we used molecular dynamics simulations on the kinase domains of both wild type and variant Tyk2 protein. Results: Our MD results provided information, at atomic level, on the consequences of the Pro1104 to Ala substitution on the structure and dynamics of the kinase domain of Tyk2 and suggested reduced enzymatic activity of the resulting protein variant due to stabilization of inactive conformations, thus adding to knowledge towards the elucidation of the protection mechanism against autoimmune diseases associated with this point mutation.