Selected papers from the Fourth Annual q-bio Conference on Cellular Information Processing

This special issue consists of 11 original papers that elaborate on work presented at the Fourth Annual q-bio Conference on Cellular Information Processing, which was held on the campus of St John's College in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA, 11-14 August 2010. Now in its fourth year, the q-bio conference has changed considerably over time. It is now well established and a major event in systems biology. The 2010 conference saw attendees from all continents (except Antarctica!) sharing novel results and participating in lively discussions at both the oral and poster sessions. The conference was oversubscribed and grew to 27 contributed talks, 16 poster spotlights and 137 contributed posters. We deliberately decreased the number of invited speakers to 21 to leave more space for contributed presentations, and the attendee feedback confirmed that the choice was a success. Although the q-bio conference has grown and matured, it has remained true to the original goal of being an intimate and dynamic event that brings together modeling, theory and quantitative experimentation for the study of cell regulation and information processing. Funded in part by a grant from NIGMS and by DOE funds through the Los Alamos National Laboratory Directed Research and Development program, the conference has continued to exhibit youth and vigor by attracting (and partially supporting) over 100 undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral researchers. The associated q-bio summer school, which precedes the conference each year, further emphasizes the development of junior scientists and makes q-bio a singular event in its impact on the future of quantitative biology. In addition to an increased international presence, the conference has notably diversified its demographic representation within the USA, including increased participation from the southeastern corner of the country. One big change in the conference this year is our new publication partner, Physical Biology. Although we are very grateful to our previous partner, IET Systems Biology, for their help over the years in publicizing the work presented at the conference, we felt that the changing needs of our participants required that we find a new partner. We are thrilled that Physical Biology is publishing the q-bio proceedings this year. It has been a great collaboration, as evidenced by the high quality of this special issue. What's next for q-bio? We are happy to report that NIGMS has recently extended the q-bio conference grant for the next three years, ensuring strong support for junior researchers who need financial assistance to participate in the event. The conference will retain its emphasis on cellular information processing, but will also build connections to other areas of modern biology and biotechnology, focusing specifically on ecology and evolutionary biology next year. Indeed, to fully understand biological information processing systems, they must be studied in their ecological contexts. We will continue to honor distinguished contributors to the field in our opening banquets; the tradition started with Howard Berg, Bruce Alberts and Michael Savageau in previous years, and continues with Dennis Bray at the upcoming 2011 event. Starting in 2011, the conference will also venture into exploration of the social aspects of science. The future is bright for q-bio! We will see you at the Fifth Annual q-bio Conference on 10-13 August 2011, in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA and at the Sixth Annual q-bio Conference in early August 2012.     

"Take some action,take some risk," conference on rural recruiting told

Physicians attending a recent conference on the retention of physicians in rural areas proposed more than 40 recommendations for dealing with recruitment and retention issues. The conference was organized by Ontario''s residents, who have been feeling the impact of attempts to encourage physicians to move to rural and underserviced areas.     

Epigenetics,Eh!: A meeting summary of the Canadian Conference on Epigenetics

In May 2011, the Canadian Conference on Epigenetics: Epigenetics Eh! was held in London, Canada. The objectives of this conference were to showcase the breadth of epigenetic research on environment and health across Canada and to provide the catalyst to develop collaborative Canadian epigenetic research opportunities, similar to existing international epigenetic initiatives in the US and Europe. With ten platform sessions and two sessions with over 100 poster presentations, this conference featured cutting-edge epigenetic research, presented by Canadian and international principal investigators and their trainees in the field of epigenetics and chromatin dynamics. An EpigenART competition included ten artists, creating a unique opportunity for artists and scientists to interact and explore their individual interpretations of this scientific discipline. The conference provided a unique venue for a significant cross-section of Canadian epigenetic researchers from diverse disciplines to meet, interact, collaborate and strategize at the national level.     

Young research investigators honored at the 2011 Gordon research conference on photosynthesis: ambiance and a perspective

Using photographs taken at the conference site, we provide a perspective on (i) the awards that were given to four young investigators at the 2011 Gordon Research Conference on Photosynthesis, and (ii) the ambiance at this conference, held at Davidson College, North Carolina, during June 12–17, 2011.     

Epigenetics, eh! A meeting summary of the Canadian Conference on Epigenetics

In May 2011, the Canadian Conference on Epigenetics: Epigenetics Eh! was held in London, Canada. The objectives of this conference were to showcase the breadth of epigenetic research on environment and health across Canada and to provide the catalyst to develop collaborative Canadian epigenetic research opportunities, similar to existing international epigenetic initiatives in the US and Europe. With ten platform sessions and two sessions with over 100 poster presentations, this conference featured cutting-edge epigenetic research, presented by Canadian and international principal investigators and their trainees in the field of epigenetics and chromatin dynamics. An EpigenART competition included ten artists, creating a unique opportunity for artists and scientists to interact and explore their individual interpretations of this scientific discipline. The conference provided a unique venue for a significant cross-section of Canadian epigenetic researchers from diverse disciplines to meet, interact, collaborate and strategize at the national level.     

G-ruption: The third international meeting on G-quadruplex and G-assembly

A three and a half day conference focusing on nucleic acid structures called G-quadruplexes (G4s) and other guanine-based assemblies was held in Sorrento, Italy (June 28–July 1, 2011) and featured 35 invited talks and over 89 posters. The G-quadruplex field continues to expand at an explosive rate with the emergence of new connections to biology, chemistry, physics, and nanotechnology. Following the trend established by the previous two international G4 meetings, the conference touched upon all these areas and facilitated productive exchanges of ideas between researchers from all over the world.     

Focus on Plasmodium vivax

In Bangkok, Thailand, 3-8 February 2002, the Multilateral Initiative on Malaria convened the first malaria conference, Vivax Malaria Research: 2002 and Beyond, devoted entirely to Plasmodium vivax research.     

Polio vaccine: the first 50 years and beyond. Summary of the meeting and next steps.

A conference on "Polio vaccine: the first 50 years and beyond" was held in Toronto, Canada, June 2005. The purpose of the conference was to bring together regulators, manufacturers, academics and public health authorities to celebrate the accomplishments of the past 50 years, to consider the challenges of achieving and sustaining polio eradication and to review standardization and regulatory issues around existing and new polio vaccines. In the final session of the conference the following summary of the meeting was presented.     

Chromatin and epigenetics in all their states: Meeting report of the first conference on Epigenetic and Chromatin Regulation of Plant Traits - January 14 – 15, 2016 - Strasbourg,France

In January 2016, the first Epigenetic and Chromatin Regulation of Plant Traits conference was held in Strasbourg, France. An all-star lineup of speakers, a packed audience of 130 participants from over 20 countries, and a friendly scientific atmosphere contributed to make this conference a meeting to remember. In this article we summarize some of the new insights into chromatin, epigenetics, and epigenomics research and highlight nascent ideas and emerging concepts in this exciting area of research.     

Do consensus conferences influence their participants?

OBJECTIVE: To determine whether participation in a consensus conference on the assessment of dementia would influence conference participants with respect to their recommendations to primary care physicians for the assessment of dementia. DESIGN: Questionnaire before and after the conference. SETTING: Canadian Consensus Conference on the Assessment of Dementia, held in Montreal, Oct. 5 and 6, 1989. PARTICIPANTS: All 38 experts representing relevant health disciplines who participated in the consensus conference; 36 completed both questionnaires. OUTCOME MEASURES: Participants'' opinion before and after the conference as to how frequently each of 28 manoeuvres (12 blood tests, 4 neurologic imaging procedures, 4 types of consultation and 8 "other" tests) should be ordered by primary care physicians as part of an assessment of a patient with dementia suspected in clinical grounds. RESULTS: For 18 (64%) of the 28 manoeuvres (10 of the 12 blood tests, 3 of the 4 neurologic imaging procedures and 5 of the 8 "other" tests), there was a shift in opinion after the conference toward recommending that primary care physicians order them less often; for 10 of these 18 (5 blood tests and 5 "other" tests) the shift was statistically significant. For the remaining 10 manoeuvres (36%) the shift in opinion was toward a recommendation that primary care physicians order them more often; the shift was not statistically significant for any of these 10 manoeuvres. CONCLUSION: Expert members of a consensus conference are influenced by the process of having participated in such a conference and are capable and willing to chance their initial recommendations when confronted with relevant data.     

A Theoretical Model for the Associative Nature of Conference Participation

Participation in conferences is an important part of every scientific career. Conferences provide an opportunity for a fast dissemination of latest results, discussion and exchange of ideas, and broadening of scientists’ collaboration network. The decision to participate in a conference depends on several factors like the location, cost, popularity of keynote speakers, and the scientist’s association with the community. Here we discuss and formulate the problem of discovering how a scientist’s previous participation affects her/his future participations in the same conference series. We develop a stochastic model to examine scientists’ participation patterns in conferences and compare our model with data from six conferences across various scientific fields and communities. Our model shows that the probability for a scientist to participate in a given conference series strongly depends on the balance between the number of participations and non-participations during his/her early connections with the community. An active participation in a conference series strengthens the scientist’s association with that particular conference community and thus increases the probability of future participations.     

Ten simple rules for switching from face-to-face to remote conference: An opportunity to estimate the reduction in GHG emissions

In 2020, the world faced the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic that drastically altered people’s lives. Since then, many countries have been forced to suspend public gatherings, leading to many conference cancellations, postponements, or reorganizations. Switching from a face-to-face to a remote conference became inevitable and the ultimate solution to sustain scientific exchanges at the national and the international levels. The same year, as a committee, we were in charge of organizing the major French annual conference that covers all computational biology areas: The “Journées Ouvertes en Biologie, Informatique et Mathématiques” (JOBIM). Despite the health crisis, we succeeded in changing the conference format from face to face to remote in a very short amount of time. Here, we propose 10 simple rules based on this experience to modify a conference format in an optimized and cost-effective way. In addition to the suggested rules, we decided to emphasize an unexpected benefit of this situation: a significant reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions related to travel for scientific conference attendance. We believe that even once the SARS-CoV-2 crisis is over, we collectively will have an opportunity to think about the way we approach such scientific events over the longer term.     

Capitalizing on nature: how to implement an ecosystem approach

The Natural Capital Initiative (www.naturalcapitalinitiative.org.uk) held its first conference ‘Valuing our life support systems’ at Savoy Place, London, from 29 April to 1 May 2009. The aim of the conference was to discuss different perspectives on, and solutions to, the conservation and sustainable use of ecosystem services. It particularly focused on the link between the environment and the economy, and how to implement an ecosystem approach to environmental management. This event brought together scientists across the natural and social sciences, alongside representatives from government, non-governmental organizations, business and industry.     

Seeking an international dialogue on research integrity

Scientific misconduct is a global problem, yet protocols for addressing it remain highly fragmented and uneven. A conference held last month in Lisbon aimed to encourage international efforts to promote research integrity and to prevent misconduct.     

International Conference on “Photosynthesis Research for Sustainability-2011”, July 24–30, 2011, Baku,Azerbaijan

In this brief report, we provide a perspective on an international conference “Photosynthesis Research for Sustainability-2011”, held in Baku, Azerbaijan, during July 24–30, 2011 (). At this conference, awards were given to nine young investigators; they are recognized in this Report. We have also included here some photographs to show the pleasant ambiance at this conference. (See and for more photographs taken by the authors as well as by others.) We invite the readers to the next conference on “Photosynthesis Research for Sustainability-2013” to be held in May or June 2013, in Baku, Azerbaijan. Information will be posted at: .     

All Africa conference on tobacco control.

Although the health hazards of smoking are now generally accepted in most Western countries, the arguments have not had much impact on poorer nations. A conference on tobacco control held in Harare, Zimbabwe, in November last year was the largest to tackle this problem. The conference heard how threats of epidemics of tobacco related disease in the distant future held little weight with governments of countries that often already had massive public health problems. More immediate effects needed to be emphasised. Speakers gave three cogent arguments; firstly, the loss of capacity for foreign trade in essential goods, since most African countries are net importers of tobacco; secondly, the extensive deforestation which is occurring to fuel the flue curing of tobacco; thirdly, evidence from Papua New Guinea that raising taxation on tobacco provides governments with increased income for many years before a decrease begins.     

The ethical and social implications of exploring African American genealogies

In June 2002, the University of Minnesota hosted a conference to explore the implications of using genetic technologies and genealogical methods to reconstruct African identity. This paper includes transcribed remarks from that conference by Annette Dula, Marian Gray Secundy and Charmaine Royal.     

Signal peptide cleavage site prediction

A series of reports - and extracts of reports - from the Freedom of Information Conference, 6-7 July, 2000, New York Academy of Medicine. The conference was sponsored by BioMed Central, to promote debate about the communication and validation of biomedical research published on the internet. Details of the meeting and all presentations are available in full online at http://biomedcentral.com/info/conference.asp