First Barcelona Conference on Epigenetics and Cancer

The Barcelona Conference on Epigenetics and Cancer (BCEC) entitled “Challenges, opportunities and perspectives” took place November 21–22, 2013 in Barcelona. The 2013 BCEC is the first edition of a series of annual conferences jointly organized by five leading research centers in Barcelona. These centers are the Institute of Predictive and Personalized Medicine of Cancer (IMPPC), the Biomedical Campus Bellvitge with its Program of Epigenetics and Cancer Biology (PEBC), the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG), the Institute for Biomedical Research (IRB), and the Molecular Biology Institute of Barcelona (IBMB). Manuel Perucho and Marcus Buschbeck from the Institute of Predictive and Personalized Medicine of Cancer put together the scientific program of the first conference broadly covering all aspects of epigenetic research ranging from fundamental molecular research to drug and biomarker development and clinical application. In one and a half days, 23 talks and 50 posters were presented to a completely booked out audience counting 270 participants.     

First Barcelona Conference on Epigenetics and Cancer

The Barcelona Conference on Epigenetics and Cancer (BCEC) entitled “Challenges, opportunities and perspectives” took place November 21–22, 2013 in Barcelona. The 2013 BCEC is the first edition of a series of annual conferences jointly organized by five leading research centers in Barcelona. These centers are the Institute of Predictive and Personalized Medicine of Cancer (IMPPC), the Biomedical Campus Bellvitge with its Program of Epigenetics and Cancer Biology (PEBC), the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG), the Institute for Biomedical Research (IRB), and the Molecular Biology Institute of Barcelona (IBMB). Manuel Perucho and Marcus Buschbeck from the Institute of Predictive and Personalized Medicine of Cancer put together the scientific program of the first conference broadly covering all aspects of epigenetic research ranging from fundamental molecular research to drug and biomarker development and clinical application. In one and a half days, 23 talks and 50 posters were presented to a completely booked out audience counting 270 participants.     

Examining entamoeba

A conference on Amebiasis and the Biology of Entamoeba histolytica was held in Agra, India, from 11 to14 February 2002.     

Promoting synergistic research and education in genomics and bioinformatics

Bioinformatics and Genomics are closely related disciplines that hold great promises for the advancement of research and development in complex biomedical systems, as well as public health, drug design, comparative genomics, personalized medicine and so on. Research and development in these two important areas are impacting the science and technology.High throughput sequencing and molecular imaging technologies marked the beginning of a new era for modern translational medicine and personalized healthcare. The impact of having the human sequence and personalized digital images in hand has also created tremendous demands of developing powerful supercomputing, statistical learning and artificial intelligence approaches to handle the massive bioinformatics and personalized healthcare data, which will obviously have a profound effect on how biomedical research will be conducted toward the improvement of human health and prolonging of human life in the future. The International Society of Intelligent Biological Medicine (http://www.isibm.org) and its official journals, the International Journal of Functional Informatics and Personalized Medicine (http://www.inderscience.com/ijfipm) and the International Journal of Computational Biology and Drug Design (http://www.inderscience.com/ijcbdd) in collaboration with International Conference on Bioinformatics and Computational Biology (Biocomp), touch tomorrow's bioinformatics and personalized medicine throughout today's efforts in promoting the research, education and awareness of the upcoming integrated inter/multidisciplinary field. The 2007 international conference on Bioinformatics and Computational Biology (BIOCOMP07) was held in Las Vegas, the United States of American on June 25-28, 2007. The conference attracted over 400 papers, covering broad research areas in the genomics, biomedicine and bioinformatics. The Biocomp 2007 provides a common platform for the cross fertilization of ideas, and to help shape knowledge and scientific achievements by bridging these two very important disciplines into an interactive and attractive forum. Keeping this objective in mind, Biocomp 2007 aims to promote interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary education and research. 25 high quality peer-reviewed papers were selected from 400+ submissions for this supplementary issue of BMC Genomics. Those papers contributed to a wide-range of important research fields including gene expression data analysis and applications, high-throughput genome mapping, sequence analysis, gene regulation, protein structure prediction, disease prediction by machine learning techniques, systems biology, database and biological software development. We always encourage participants submitting proposals for genomics sessions, special interest research sessions, workshops and tutorials to Professor Hamid R. Arabnia (hra@cs.uga.edu) in order to ensure that Biocomp continuously plays the leadership role in promoting inter/multidisciplinary research and education in the fields. Biocomp received top conference ranking with a high score of 0.95/1.00. Biocomp is academically co-sponsored by the International Society of Intelligent Biological Medicine and the Research Laboratories and Centers of Harvard University--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Indiana University--Purdue University, Georgia Tech--Emory University, UIUC, UCLA, Columbia University, University of Texas at Austin and University of Iowa etc. Biocomp--Worldcomp brings leading scientists together across the nation and all over the world and aims to promote synergistic components such as keynote lectures, special interest sessions, workshops and tutorials in response to the advances of cutting-edge research.     

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

     

Meeting Report: EMBL Conference - Omics and Personalized Medicine: February 16-18, 2012, Heidelberg, Germany

The first EMBL conference on "Omics and Personalized Medicine", jointly organized by Rudi Balling (LCSB, Luxembourg), Leroy Hood, Wolfgang Huber (EMBL, Heidelberg, Germany) and Lars Steinmetz (EMBL) addresses the potential and challenges of translating systems biology research into the clinic. This meeting report provides a highlight of the conference, covering not only the science, but also social and legal issues.     

2K09 and thereafter : the coming era of integrative bioinformatics, systems biology and intelligent computing for functional genomics and personalized medicine research

Significant interest exists in establishing synergistic research in bioinformatics, systems biology and intelligent computing. Supported by the United States National Science Foundation (NSF), International Society of Intelligent Biological Medicine (http://www.ISIBM.org), International Journal of Computational Biology and Drug Design (IJCBDD) and International Journal of Functional Informatics and Personalized Medicine, the ISIBM International Joint Conferences on Bioinformatics, Systems Biology and Intelligent Computing (ISIBM IJCBS 2009) attracted more than 300 papers and 400 researchers and medical doctors world-wide. It was the only inter/multidisciplinary conference aimed to promote synergistic research and education in bioinformatics, systems biology and intelligent computing. The conference committee was very grateful for the valuable advice and suggestions from honorary chairs, steering committee members and scientific leaders including Dr. Michael S. Waterman (USC, Member of United States National Academy of Sciences), Dr. Chih-Ming Ho (UCLA, Member of United States National Academy of Engineering and Academician of Academia Sinica), Dr. Wing H. Wong (Stanford, Member of United States National Academy of Sciences), Dr. Ruzena Bajcsy (UC Berkeley, Member of United States National Academy of Engineering and Member of United States Institute of Medicine of the National Academies), Dr. Mary Qu Yang (United States National Institutes of Health and Oak Ridge, DOE), Dr. Andrzej Niemierko (Harvard), Dr. A. Keith Dunker (Indiana), Dr. Brian D. Athey (Michigan), Dr. Weida Tong (FDA, United States Department of Health and Human Services), Dr. Cathy H. Wu (Georgetown), Dr. Dong Xu (Missouri), Drs. Arif Ghafoor and Okan K Ersoy (Purdue), Dr. Mark Borodovsky (Georgia Tech, President of ISIBM), Dr. Hamid R. Arabnia (UGA, Vice-President of ISIBM), and other scientific leaders. The committee presented the 2009 ISIBM Outstanding Achievement Awards to Dr. Joydeep Ghosh (UT Austin), Dr. Aidong Zhang (Buffalo) and Dr. Zhi-Hua Zhou (Nanjing) for their significant contributions to the field of intelligent biological medicine.     

The Global Crisis of Malaria: Report on a Yale Conference

An international conference, “The Global Crisis of Malaria: Lessons of the Past and Future Prospects,” met at Yale University, November 7-9, 2008. The symposium was organized by Professor Frank Snowden and sponsored by the Provost’s office, the MacMillan Center, the Program in the History of Science and History of Medicine, and the Section of the History of Medicine at the Yale School of Medicine. It brought together experts on malaria from a variety of disciplines, countries, and experiences — physicians, research scientists, historians of medicine, public health officials, and representatives of several non-governmental organizations (NGOs). An underlying theme was that much could be gained from a big-picture examination across disciplinary frontiers of the contemporary public health problem caused by malaria. Particular features of the conference were its intense scrutiny of historical successes and failures in malaria control and its demonstration of the relevance of history to policy discussions in the field.     

The International Conference on Intelligent Biology and Medicine (ICIBM) 2016: putting systems biology to work

Between December 8–10, 2016, the International Conference on Intelligent Biology and Medicine (ICIBM 2016) was held in Houston, Texas, USA. The conference included eight scientific sessions, four tutorials, one poster session, four highlighted talks and four keynotes that covered topics in 3D genome structure analysis and visualization, next generation sequencing analysis, computational drug discovery, medical informatics, cancer genomics and systems biology. Systems biology has been a main theme in ICIBM 2016, with exciting advances were presented in many areas of systems biology. Here, we selected seven high quality papers to be published in BMC Systems Biology.     

Microbes at their best: first Mol Micro Meeting Würzburg

Founded on ground-breaking discoveries such as the operon model by Jacob and Monod more than 50 years ago, molecular microbiology is now one of the most vibrant disciplines of the life sciences. The first Mol Micro Meeting Würzburg ('M3W') hosted more than 160 scientists from 14 countries to exchange their latest ideas in this field of research. Divided into the four main sessions Gene Regulation, Pathogenesis, Microbial Cell Biology and Signalling, the conference provided insight into current advances and future goals and challenges.     

Mitochondriotropic liposomes

Mitochondrial dysfunction contributes to a large variety of human disorders, ranging from neurodegenerative and neuromuscular diseases, obesity, and diabetes to ischemia-reperfusion injury and cancer. Increasing pharmacological efforts toward therapeutic interventions have been made leading to the emergence of "Mitochondrial Medicine" as a new field of biomedical research. The identification of molecular mitochondrial drug targets in combination with the development of methods for selectively delivering biologically active molecules to the site of mitochondria will eventually launch a multitude of new therapies for the treatment of mitochondria-related diseases, which are based either on the selective protection, repair, or eradication of cells. Yet, while tremendous efforts are being undertaken to identify new mitochondrial drugs and drug targets, the development of mitochondria-specific drug carrier systems is lagging behind. To ensure a high efficiency of current and future mitochondrial therapeutics, delivery systems need to be developed, which are able to selectively transport biologically active molecules to and into mitochondria within living human cells. In this study we present the first data demonstrating that conventional liposomes can be rendered mitochondria-specific via the attachment of known mitochondriotropic residues to the liposomal surface.     

Genomics,molecular imaging,bioinformatics, and bio-nano-info integration are synergistic components of translational medicine and personalized healthcare research

Supported by National Science Foundation (NSF), International Society of Intelligent Biological Medicine (ISIBM), International Journal of Computational Biology and Drug Design and International Journal of Functional Informatics and Personalized Medicine, IEEE 7th Bioinformatics and Bioengineering attracted more than 600 papers and 500 researchers and medical doctors. It was the only synergistic inter/multidisciplinary IEEE conference with 24 Keynote Lectures, 7 Tutorials, 5 Cutting-Edge Research Workshops and 32 Scientific Sessions including 11 Special Research Interest Sessions that were designed dynamically at Harvard in response to the current research trends and advances. The committee was very grateful for the IEEE Plenary Keynote Lectures given by: Dr. A. Keith Dunker (Indiana), Dr. Jun Liu (Harvard), Dr. Brian Athey (Michigan), Dr. Mark Borodovsky (Georgia Tech and President of ISIBM), Dr. Hamid Arabnia (Georgia and Vice-President of ISIBM), Dr. Ruzena Bajcsy (Berkeley and Member of United States National Academy of Engineering and Member of United States Institute of Medicine of the National Academies), Dr. Mary Yang (United States National Institutes of Health and Oak Ridge, DOE), Dr. Chih-Ming Ho (UCLA and Member of United States National Academy of Engineering and Academician of Academia Sinica), Dr. Andy Baxevanis (United States National Institutes of Health), Dr. Arif Ghafoor (Purdue), Dr. John Quackenbush (Harvard), Dr. Eric Jakobsson (UIUC), Dr. Vladimir Uversky (Indiana), Dr. Laura Elnitski (United States National Institutes of Health) and other world-class scientific leaders. The Harvard meeting was a large academic event 100% full-sponsored by IEEE financially and academically. After a rigorous peer-review process, the committee selected 27 high-quality research papers from 600 submissions. The committee is grateful for contributions from keynote speakers Dr. Russ Altman (IEEE BIBM conference keynote lecturer on combining simulation and machine learning to recognize function in 4D), Dr. Mary Qu Yang (IEEE BIBM workshop keynote lecturer on new initiatives of detecting microscopic disease using machine learning and molecular biology, http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/servlet/opac?punumber=4425386) and Dr. Jack Y. Yang (IEEE BIBM workshop keynote lecturer on data mining and knowledge discovery in translational medicine) from the first IEEE Computer Society BioInformatics and BioMedicine (IEEE BIBM) international conference and workshops, November 2-4, 2007, Silicon Valley, California, USA.     

A turning point for natural product discovery--ESF-EMBO research conference: synthetic biology of antibiotic production

Synthetic Biology is in a critical phase of its development: it has finally reached the point where it can move from proof-of-principle studies to real-world applications. Secondary metabolite biosynthesis, especially the discovery and production of antibiotics, is a particularly relevant target area for such applications of synthetic biology. The first international conference to explore this subject was held in Spain in October 2011. In four sessions on General Synthetic Biology, Filamentous Fungal Systems, Actinomyces Systems, and Tools and Host Structures, scientists presented the most recent technological and scientific advances, and a final-day Forward Look Plenary Discussion identified future trends in the field.     

Liposomes and liposome-like vesicles for drug and DNA delivery to mitochondria

Mitochondrial research is presently one of the fastest growing disciplines in biomedicine. Since the early 1990s, it has become increasingly evident that mitochondrial dysfunction contributes to a large variety of human disorders, ranging from neurodegenerative and neuromuscular diseases, obesity, and diabetes to ischemia-reperfusion injury and cancer. Most remarkably, mitochondria, the "power house" of the cell, have also become accepted as the "motor of cell death" reflecting their recognized key role during apoptosis. Based on these recent exciting developments in mitochondrial research, increasing pharmacological efforts have been made leading to the emergence of "Mitochondrial Medicine" as a whole new field of biomedical research. The identification of molecular mitochondrial drug targets in combination with the development of methods for selectively delivering biologically active molecules to the site of mitochondria will eventually launch a multitude of new therapies for the treatment of mitochondria-related diseases, which are based either on the selective protection, repair, or eradication of cells. Yet, while tremendous efforts are being undertaken to identify new mitochondrial drugs and drug targets, the development of mitochondria-specific drug carrier systems is lagging behind. To ensure a high efficiency of current and future mitochondrial therapeutics, colloidal vectors, i.e., delivery systems, need to be developed able to selectively transport biologically active molecules to and into mitochondria within living human cells. Here we review ongoing efforts in our laboratory directed toward the development of different phospholipid- and non-phospholipid-based mitochondriotropic drug carrier systems.     

Improved brain and muscle mitochondrial respiration with CoQ. An in vivo study by 31P-MR spectroscopy in patients with mitochondrial cytopathies.

We used in vivo phosphorus magnetic resonance spectroscopy (31P-MRS) to study the effect of CoQ10 on the efficiency of brain and skeletal muscle mitochondrial respiration in ten patients with mitochondrial cytopathies. Before CoQ, brain [PCr] was remarkably lower in patients than in controls, while [Pi] and [ADP] were higher. Brain cytosolic free [Mg2+] and delta G of ATP hydrolysis were also abnormal in all patients. MRS also revealed abnormal mitochondrial function in the skeletal muscles of all patients, as shown by a decreased rate of PCr recovery from exercise. After six-months of treatment with CoQ (150 mg/day), all brain MRS-measurable variables as well as the rate of muscle mitochondrial respiration were remarkably improved in all patients. These in vivo findings show that treatment with CoQ in patients with mitochondrial cytopathies improves mitochondrial respiration in both brain and skeletal muscles, and are consistent with Lenaz's view that increased CoQ concentration in the mitochondrial membrane increases the efficiency of oxidative phosphorylation independently of enzyme deficit.     

The International Conference on Intelligent Biology and Medicine (ICIBM) 2018: systems biology on diverse data types

Between June 10–12, 2018, the International Conference on Intelligent Biology and Medicine (ICIBM 2018) was held in Los Angeles, California, USA. The conference included 11 scientific sessions, four tutorials, one poster session, four keynote talks and four eminent scholar talks that covered a wide range of topics in 3D genome structure analysis and visualization, next generation sequencing analysis, computational drug discovery, medical informatics, cancer genomics and systems biology. Systems biology has been a main theme in ICIBM 2018, with exciting advances presented in many areas of systems biology, covering various different data types such as gene regulation, circular RNAs expression, single-cell RNA-Seq, inter-chromosomal interactions, metabolomics, proteomics and phosphoproteomics. Here, we describe ten high quality papers to be published in BMC Systems Biology.     

The first report on food and feeding habits of yellowtail mullet,Minimugil cascasia (Hamilton, 1822), of the tropical River Ganga,India

Environmental Biology of Fishes - This is the first study conducted on the food and feeding habits of the yellowtail mullet (Minimugil cascasia), in the Ganga River (India). The gut contents of 276...     

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.     

Pictures of Synthetic Biology

This article is concerned with the representation of Synthetic Biology in the media and by biotechnology experts. An analysis was made of German-language media articles published between 2004 and 2008, and interviews with biotechnology-experts at the Synthetic Biology conference SB 3.0 in Zurich 2007. The results have been reflected in terms of the definition of Synthetic Biology, applications of Synthetic Biology and the perspectives of opportunities and risks. In the media, Synthetic Biology is represented as a new scientific field of biology with an engineering-like thinking, while the scientists interviewed mostly define Synthetic Biology as contrary to nature and the natural system. Media articles present Synthetic Biology broadly with positive potential and inform the publics less about the potential risks than about the benefits of Synthetic Biology. In contrast, the experts interviewed reflect more on the risks than the opportunities of Synthetic Biology. Both used metaphors to describe Synthetic Biology and its aspects.