Initially CCEB is a cross-institutional and inter-disciplinary virtual cente.. Its research topics aim to cover all subject areas where statistical methods and computational algorithms are applied to analyze genetic and genomic data. Examples include sequence analysis (pattern matching, similarity search, molecular evolution, molecular phylogenetics and population genetics), inference of gene/protein interaction networks, association studies to identify disease genes, etc. CCEB emphasizes statistical properties of analytical methods in addition to computational speed, and encourage work that involves probabilistic modelling.

CCEB has invited fourteen professors from different institutes in CAS, including Institute of Botany, Institute of Applied Mathematics, Academy of Mathematics and Systems Science, Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Institute of Microbiology, Beijing Genomics Institute, and Institute of Zoology. Nine guest professors are invited by CCEB from some famous foreign institutions, such as University of California, University College London, European Bioinformatics Institute, University of Copenhagen, Arizona State University, Duke University, and North Carolina State University.