News & Commentary |
Every October I wait for the Nobel Prize announcements to come from Stockholm, and the last couple of days witnessed two announcements that happen to pertain to the molecular level of life. The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Drs. Elizabeth H. Blackburn, Carol W. Greider and Jack W. Szostak for the discovery of how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase ([link]).
And the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Drs. Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, Thomas A. Steitz and Ada E. Yonath for the studies of the structure and function of the ribosome ([link]).
Hearty congratulations to the Laureates!
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DATES: March 25-28, 2010
LOCALE: Department of Applied Mathematics & Humanities, SVNIT, Surat, India
URL (PDF): [link]
Original research papers on recent developments in bioinformatics are invited for oral and poster presentation in the conference. Intended participants are invited to send the abstracts (not exceeding 250 words) along with full length papers to the organizing secretary on E- mail address bioin2010@gmail.com by December 15, 2009. The Academic program of the conference will consist of Keynote, Plenary and Invited Talks, and Paper Presentations. Please see the brochure for more information.
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ISBN: 1584889292
URL: [link]
This book introduces programming concepts to life science researchers, bioinformaticians, support staff, students, and everyone who is interested in applying programming to solve biologically-related problems. Python is the chosen programming language for this task because it is both powerful and easy-to-use.
It begins with the basic aspects of the language (like data types and control structures) up to essential skills on today's bioinformatics tasks like building web applications, using relational database management systems, XML and version control. There is a chapter devoted to Biopython (http://www.biopython.org) since it can be used for most of the tasks related to bioinformatics data processing.
There is a section with applications with source code, featuring sequence manipulation, filtering vector contamination, calculating DNA melting temperature, parsing a genbank file, inferring splicing sites, and more.
There are questions at the end of every chapter and odd numbered questions are answered in an appendix making this text suitable for classroom use.
This book can be used also as a reference material as it includes Richard Gruet's Python Quick Reference, and the Python Style Guide.
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DATES: March 22-24, 2010
LOCALE: Cambridge, United Kingdom
URL: [link]
This sixth meeting on Integrative Bioinformatics will be of interest to Bioinformaticians, Computer Scientists and others working in, or interested in finding out more about, the developing area of integrative bioinformatics. There will be opportunities to present and discuss methods, theoretical approaches, and their practical applications.
SUBMISSIONS:
We are now inviting submission of manuscripts to be considered for presentation at IB2010. The deadline for online submissions is 1st December 2009. Accepted papers will appear in a special issue of the Journal of Integrative Bioinformatics (http://journal.imbio.de) which will be available as the printed conference proceedings. To submit a paper, please visit the symposium web site where further details can be found.
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Further information can be obtained from Paul Verrier (paul.verrier@bbsrc.ac.uk) or Chris Rawlings (chris.rawlings@bbsrc.ac.uk).
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DATES: November 11-14, 2009
LOCALE: Cal Poly Pomona in Pomona, CA
URL: [link]
The primary goal of this conference will be to provide a platform for researchers, scientists, educators, dietitians, health care professionals and policy makers to discuss the current status of nutritional genomic research. Renowned experts in the field will address the latest scientific findings on the mechanisms underlying diet-genome interactions. Challenges to the potential application of nutritional genomics to improve the nutritional value of the food supply and to address public health issues will be emphasized throughout the program. The final session of the conference will identify future directions for nutritional genomics research as well as challenges and opportunities for improving global health and wellness by preventing, delaying or mitigating chronic diseases and cancer with diet.
The ultimate goal of the conference is to use whole foods in our diet to prevent some of the catastrophic health outcomes currently overtaking our children and impacting their future health and longevity.
TARGET AUDIENCE:
The conference is targeted to health professionals, educators and researchers interested in Nutritional Genomics as part of their areas of specialization and the future application of these materials in health care. The area of nutritional genomics enables integration of a variety of specialty areas, including genetics, molecular biology, nutrition, biochemistry and physiology as the basics to future careers, and the new use of mathematics for development of the bioinformatics field.
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DATES: February 12-13, 2010
LOCALE: Online at Bioinformatics.Org
Research in the fields of bioinformatics and systems biology has gained momentum within the Indian subcontinent over the last few years. And now, having brought the first "Virtual Conference on Bioinformatics" to the continent of Africa with Afbix '09, Bioinformatics.Org announces the first of its kind in India.
The Indian Virtual Conference on Bioinformatics (Inbix '10) organizers hope this opportunity will not only foster virtual interactions and collaborations among students and practitioners but will also allow students to listen to scientists within and across India, who are among the top researchers in the world in bioinformatics and computational biology.
This is the first call and announcement for Inbix '10. Several top scientists have already been scheduled.
REGISTRATION:
Registration starts October 15, 2009. Stay tuned for more announcements. If you are a group of 15 or more, you can form a virtual hub.
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
For more details, please visit [link]
This is organized by Bioclues.org and Bioinformatics.Org. For further information and news, please contact the organizers.
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This release includes the first public release of bioLegato, a Java interface for running bioinformatics programs. bioLegato 0.5.7 has almost all the functionality of GDE (the previous GUI), and is now the preferred graphic interface for BIRCH.
AVAILABILITY:
BIRCH 2.5 is now available at http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~psgendb
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TexFlame is a tool that renders a single PubMed abstract as a graph, whose representation is derived from the Systems Biology Graphical Notation (SBGN). The aim is for the graph to be a complete syntactic-semantic representation of the abstract -- as of now, we have tested it primarily against signaling and ion channel abstracts.
While the tool (as of now) works only on a single abstract, we would like to extend it for path searches against multiple abstracts in the near future.
This tool may possibly of interest to Bioinformatics.Org users. We welcome your comments on our blog site at [link]
AVAILABILITY:
http://texflame.com/
REFERENCE:
Le Novere et al. 2009. The Systems Biology Graphical Notation. Nat Biotechnol. 27(8):735-41. ([link])
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The autonomous state of Andalusia last week announced its own medical genome project, which is not just sequencing for the sake of obtaining a sequence but with a clear medical objective. The goal is to search for a pattern of mutations responsible for rare diseases that have an incidence rate of about 1 in 2,000.
This is a 3-year project, starting from 2010. The first year will involve sequencing complete genomes of healthy control individuals and creating a model of a "healthy genome," without any rare disease mutations. This model will then be tested and perfected with an extensive resource of 11,000 genomes with rare diseases. The goal is to search for mutations at a rapid rate. Currently, it takes about 4-5 years of work.
The goal will be made possible by rapid and economical next-generation sequencing (NGS) from Roche 454 instruments and extensive bioinformatics. This is an incredible opportunity for Andalusia and Spain to show that the elusive goal and promise of personalized medicine, by all sequencing projects, is finally coming closer, after all these years.
FOR MORE INFORMATION (in Spanish):
[link]
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DATES: September 25-26, 2009
LOCALE: Institute of Biotechnology & Research Center (IBRC), Agra, India
IBRC plans to start a learning program in the area of Biotechnology and its ancillary fields. The multidisciplinary curriculum will cover all aspects of Biotechnology including understanding process principles, experimentation, animal and plant technologies, bioinformatics and etc.
REGISTRATION:
Registration is a must to attend this workshop. Student participants are advised to attend this workshop with their parents. Participants are requested to register with Rs.500/- DD.
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Ph: 0562 – 2640044 / +919557436159
Email: ibrcagra_biotech@yahoo.co.in
http://www.ibrcagra.com/
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Acknowledgments |
We wish to thank the following for their support:
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