BioMed Central Blog
Genome Biology’s two-mile high epigenomic epiphanies
"A Lamarckian contribution to natural selection doesn't make much sense to me," says father-of-(modern) epigenetics Andy Feinberg as he opens his talk at the Keystone Symposium on Epigenomics.
Admittedly, expressing skepticism toward Lamarck’s theory on the heritability of acquired traits is hardly controversial in the 21st century, but a number of better accepted theories were also challenged during the meeting, which was held concurrently with the Keystone Symposium on Chromatin Dynamics January 17-22 in Keystone, CO.
Tim Bestor (Columbia) came fully armed and ready for a fight as he took on the prevailing truth in the literature that promoter CpG hypermethylation is a pathogenic feature of many tumors. But, strikingly, the audience response was one of agreement with Bestor's line of argument. An overreliance on tissue culture cell lines was blamed for the unrepresentative reporting of tumor cell methylation patterns.
The importance of avoiding generalizations from results observed in a given cellular context was a strong message from the meeting, and multiple presentations reported remarkably high cell-type specificity for a range of epigenomic features.
Another theory to find itself in the crosshairs was that of an independent functional significance for histone modifications; instead, it was argued that the distribution of these marks is merely reflective of polymerase activity and of chromatin openness.
The conference organizers believe that the turnout (~650 participants) is a world record for an epigenomics meeting, a clear sign that the field is in its ascendancy. Methodological innovations – such as the Dekker lab's HiC approach to mapping the genome in 3D, Paul Soloway's high-throughput fluorescent chromatin sorting, and high resolution DNA-protein interaction mapping methods developed by the Henikoff and Pugh* labs – show that there is plenty of potential for epigenomics to continue its upward momentum. Perfect timing, then, for this year's Genome Biology special issue focusing on epigenomics, for which we are now accepting submissions. BioMed Central is also the publisher of Epigenetics & Chromatin, an open access journal dedicated to this topic, which boasts Steve Henikoff and Frank Grosveld as hands-on Editors-in-Chief.
A final thought: maybe it was just the thin mountain air befuddling the mind, but some of the work presented on heritable epialleles and mobile sRNAs in plants did seem, after all, to offer renewed hope for a quasi-Lamarckian inheritance (propagation of an acquired trait for a few generations, if not in permanency).
*see our Research Highlight by Eric Mendenhall and Brad Bernstein on the Pugh lab's ChIP-exo method
See also: Genome Biology's Twitter stream for a more detailed account of the Symposia
Posted by Naomi Attar at 16:59 Comments (0)
BioMed Central attends 4th European Public Health Conference
On November 9th 2011, BioMed Central attended the 4th joint European Public Health Conference combining the 19th annual European Public Health Association (EUPHA) meeting and the 33rd annual meeting of the Association of Schools of Public Health in the European Region (ASPHER) in Copenhagen, Denmark. Organized by the Danish Society of Public Health and themed ‘Public Health and Welfare – Welfare Development and Public Health’ this year’s conference brought together just under 1,500 public health experts to exchange information on the field’s contribution to welfare by means of health promotion, health protection, diseases prevention and health services.
The EUPHA conference was an ideal showcase for BioMed Central’s wide range of public health journals, which include BMC Public Health, Archives of Public Health, Health and Quality of Life Outcomes, BMC Infectious Diseases and Substance Abuse Treatment, Prevention and Policy. We were delighted to meet Herman Van Oyen and Oliver Bruyère, Editors-in-Chief of Archives of Public Health, the official journal of the Belgian Association of Public Health, which aims to contribute to public health knowledge, enhance the interaction between research, policy and practice and stimulate public health monitoring and indicator development.
We would also like to take this opportunity to thank Lea Maes, Section Editor of BMC Public Health and Ossi Rahkonen, Cecile Boot, Martin Lindstrom, George Thomson and Anton Kunst, Associate Editors of BMC Public Health for taking the time to discuss the performance of the journal which, in the last year, has seen a 60% growth in the number of the submissions it has received. We appreciate the hard work they and other members of the Editorial Board have contributed to the journal as this success would not have been possible without them. We hope to meet more of you and extend our thanks to you personally at APHA 2012, which will be taking place on October 27-31 in San Francisco next year.
Natalie Pafitis
Senior Executive Editor
BMC Public Health
Posted by Ian Ward at 15:12 Comments (0)
Genome Medicine workshop at 7th Annual Meeting of Asian Epigenome Alliance
The Editors
of Genome Medicine are delighted to announce a Workshop on the
Epigenetics/Epigenomics of Disease to be held as part of the 7th Annual
Meeting of the Asian Epigenome Alliance/3rd Shanghai International
Conference of Epigenetics and Disease.
The meeting will take place in Shanghai on 19-22 April 2012. During this three-day conference, 48 leading scientists from around the world will highlight the exceptional advances in the field.
This meeting has been organized by Genome Medicine’s editorial board member Jingde Zhu of Shanghai Cancer Institute/Renji Hospital and Lin He from Shanghai Fudan University, in conjunction with Rebecca Furlong, the Editor of Genome Medicine.
The workshop with Genome Medicine will have three sessions:
Genome Medicine day
Cancer epigenetics
and epigenomics
Epigenomics and autoimmune disease and asthma
Epigenomics and in the metabolic and psychiatric disorders
Speakers for the workshop include Esteban Ballestar, Jingde Zhu and Bin-Tean Teh.
The sessions for the other two days include:
Chemistry and biology of the epigenetic signals and key players
Epigenetic(-omic) perspectives of the complex biological systems
High order chromatin structures in the complex biological system
Towards the epigenome reference maps: New conceptual and technological
breakthrough
Non-coding RNAs in development and disease
The Asian Epigenome Alliance was launched in 2003 to promote epigenetic and epigenomic research in the region.
For more information, go to the website:http://www.bioon.com/z/shanghaiepigeneticssymposium201204/index.html.
Posted by Maria Hodges at 16:38 Comments (0)
Sequencing from Starbucks and the not-so-patently obvious: Genome Biology attends ICHG 2011
Who owns your DNA sequence? "You do" might seem like the obvious answer, but it wasn’t one that everyone attending the 12th International Congress of Human Genetics in Montreal could agree on.
In a debate on gene patenting, the conference heard how an astonishing 20% of human genes currently have intellectual property claims on them and how Myriad Genetics has had some success defending its patents on breast cancer genes BRCA1 and BRCA2 in the US courts (and, to a more limited extent, in the European Patent Office).
Even the 80% of your gene sequences that have escaped patenting do not belong to you, according to Radoje Drmanac of Complete Genomics, who espoused the view that genomes do not belong to sequenced individuals but to computers. Speaking in a debate on how clinicians can best adapt to the coalescence between high-throughput sequencing and personalized medicine, Drmanac was one of many to claim that patients should not be given access to their DNA sequence.
This coalescence was a notable feature of the conference, with many reports of novel mutations identified by high-throughput sequencing technologies. In particular, exome sequencing has made massively parallel sequencing accessible to a wide range of clinicians and researchers, due to the reduced cost relative to whole genome sequencing. To put a measure on this phenomenon, no less than 387 submitted abstracts were tagged with "exome/s" as a keyword. In light of this, it was no wonder that free copies of Genome Biology’s special issue on exome sequencing were a big hit.
The expansion of high-throughput sequencing in the clinic looks set to continue at a rapid pace, thanks to new affordable "desktop" sequencers exhibited by Illumina (MiSeq) and Life Technologies (IonTorrent) – a development analogous to the appearance of IBM's personal computer.
A demonstration of MiSeq showed that it has been designed with a non-scientist user in mind – and maybe a lazy user, too, given that a smartphone app can provide real time updates while you sit out your sequencing run in the comfort of a coffee shop.
It is easy to imagine that every hospital and clinic in the developed world will have access to desktop sequencers in the not-too-distant feature; for the developing world, a protoype of a handheld DNA sequencer was presented that uses nanowires for gene sequencing at a projected cost of $400 per device.
Controversies were not limited to genome ownership. Jim Watson caused a stir by branding swathes of humanity as "genetic losers". Michael Hayden, of the University of British Columbia, countered that "we are all brothers and sisters in genetic mutation" and that his greatest source of inspiration has been those who have borne their burdens of genetic disease with quiet dignity.
Controversial to this observer was Lynn B. Jorde’s baffling decision to turn down an invited appearance on The Jerry Springer Show. Jorde’s address as President of the American Society of Human Genetics (whose 61st annual meeting ran concurrently with the conference) discussed, in TV-friendly dulcet tones, his genetics education workshops run for the judiciary. Judge Robert Sweet, who heard the Myriad Genetics patent case in his court, may not have needed Jorde’s help because, as fate would have it, his clerk at the time had a PhD in molecular biology (another former clerk was disgraced New York governor Eliot Spitzer).
The 13th Congress will take place in Yokohama, Japan – but not until 2016; the 62nd meeting of the American Society, ASHG 2012, will be held next year in San Francisco. In the mean time, why not listen to Genome Biology’s podcast on the sequencing of disease variants, which features discussions with Jim Lupski, Joris Veltman, Jay Shendure and Elaine Mardis on many of the themes central to this year’s conference.
Posted by Naomi Attar at 11:50 Comments (0)
Infectious Agents in Cancer has published the proceedings from the 1st Biennial conference on "The Science of Global Prostate Cancer Disparities in Black Men" in its most recent supplement.
Prostate cancer is proven to disproportionately overburden men of African descent, with the average annual incidence rate being 59% higher for US Black men than White men (data from between 2001 and 2005). The primary reasons for 
this disparity have yet to be confirmed.
The conference took place in Jacksonville, FL from the 27th-29th August with the aim to better understand the aetiology of prostate cancer among at-risk Black men, and develop effective interventions to address these disparities. With delegates from North America, South America, Europe, Africa and the Caribbean, this conference is a landmark effort to address the global burden of prostate cancer in Black men.
Posted by Philip Dooner at 15:38 Comments (0)
Neural Stem Cell focus in Cambridge
BioMed Central attended the Cambridge Neural Stem Cell Symposium last week. The meeting was co-hosted by the Cambridge Stem Cell Initiative to bring together a focus upon the recent advances the of field of neural stem cell biology and to encourage further collaboration and interaction between nearly 300 delegates. This gathering exposed the accelerating pace of discovery in the field of neurogenesis, especially in normal adults, and the role of defects in growth and differentiation in disease. There was much interest amongst the attendees in the recent Stem Cell thematic series published by BioMed Central's flagship journals, BMC Biology, BMC Medicine and Genome Medicine.
An energetic kick-off was delivered in the opening talk by Gerd Kemperman, who reviewed convincing evidence to support the impact of 
exercise on the growth of hippocampal neurons. Several high profile Editorial Board Members of the journal Neural Development were amongst the strong line-up of speakers, including Jonas Frisen, Arturo Alvarez-Buylla, Andrea Brand and Francois Guillemot, as well as the meeting co-organizer, Bill Harris (Editor-in-Chief). The Plenary sessions were also delivered by Neural Development board members Fiona Doetsch (Stem Cell Biology, Cell Specification & Differentiation) and Fred ‘Rusty’ Gage. During the latter session, Fred presented exciting new work showing that LINE-1 retrotransposon “jumping gene” insertion into the adult brain leads to the enrichment of neuronal differentiation.
The event also brought together many students and young scientists in the area, who contributed to workshop presentations and posters. The Editorial Board of Neural Development presented an award for the best poster to Eva Porlan (University of Valencia) for her presentation of N-cadherin-mediated quiescence of subependymal neural stem cells in adult mouse brain. We wish Eva many congratulations on the impressive results of her hard work.
Posted by Helen Whitaker at 13:50 Comments (0)
BMC Biophysics meets the Queen of the Danube
How appropriate for the 8th European Biophysics Congress to be held in a city like Budapest, the so-called “Queen of the Danube”. Here is a place unified at the banks of this great river—Buda to west, Pest to the east—and here is where Biology meets Physics, unified in a single discipline.
Like the city itself this union is not a new one, with co-hosts the European Biophysics Societies Association (EBSA) and the Hungarian Biophysical Society celebrating their 27th and 50th anniversary, respectively.
In the face of such history, BMC Biophysics is a relatively new addition to the field. The journal 
has recently relaunched from its previous incarnation as PMC Biophysics, and is now a member of the BMC-series journals, with an expanded Editorial Board.
As one of the few dedicated biophysics journals to be entirely open access, this is an exciting time for the field to embrace open data, and the associated benefits of free and open dissemination of research.
BMC Biophysics will consider all articles across the entire field of biophysics, with no restriction on article types. We particularly welcome submissions with a strong focus on physics, as well as contributions to the field of computational biophysics, and biophysical methods including software articles. As an online publisher we are not restricted by page limits, and are happy to handle non-standard figure-types—such as videos—as additional files.
The EBSA Congress was a wonderful showcase for the breadth of scope that this field has to offer, and BMC Biophysics was delighted to be able to catch up with its current outgoing president, and Section Editor for the journal, Professor Alberto Diaspro. Professor Diaspro was enthused by how the conference has developed since its inception 16 years ago, and to see the huge developments that have occurred in the field over this time.
In his opening lecture to the popular “Imaging and Optical Microscopy” session, he talked at length of the latest advances in super-resolution nanoscopy, and the “resolution obsession” that drives the field (or “vive la resolution” as Holger Stark of the Max Planck Institute puts it). We are delighted to welcome Professor Diaspro to the journal’s Editorial Board, and look forward to working together as the field develops further.
Other notable highlights of the congress included sessions on “Neuronal Systems and Optogenetics” and “Nucleic Acid and Chromatin Structure and Function” (jointly hosted by BMC Biophysics Section Editors Jörg Langowski and Sanford Leuba), as well as a number of exciting plenary addresses. These included an opening address by Nobel laureate Ada Yonath, who emphasised strongly the need for a greater presence for women researchers across all scientific disciplines.
This call was appropriately met in the EBSA Prize-winning lecture that followed, with recipient Kinneret Keren discussing her excellent research on cell movement. In it, she likened the biophysical problem of actin dynamics to the equivalent of attempting to fit the world’s population into a city the size of Budapest, and then expecting them to self-organise at the speed of 600 km/h. I’m not sure how the Queen of the Danube would feel about that.
Simon Harold PhD
Executive Editor
BMC Biophysics
Posted by Simon Harold at 14:57 Comments (0)
The proceedings of the 10th Symposium on Lactic Acid Bacteria (LAB10) are published today in Microbial Cell Factories. The LAB10 Symposium brings together experts, every three years, to share scientific knowledge of Lactobacilli. These bacteria share an intimate history with humans, having been ever-present in our food and forming part of our normal gut microbiota. Dubbed “friendly” and “good” by advertizers, Lactobacilli are natural candidates for industrial and medical use.
Guest edited by Colin Hill, Michiel Kleerebezem and Jan Kok, the proceedings include fundamental molecular biology, physiology and genomic studies of Lactobacilli. For example, O’ Donnell and colleagues show that the metabolism of different L. ruminis strains (found in the gut of cows, pigs and humans) is made flexible by variation in carbohydrate utilization genes. Lactobacilli are perhaps best known within the food industry and Vogel and colleagues investigate the mechanism of evolution of L. sanfranciscensis that allows it to predominate in sourdough bread. Since many species are already established as food grade bacteria, they also present safe vectors for medical use such as the delivery of therapeutic proteins and DNA vaccines.
It is clear from these collected works that diverse research into lactic acid bacteria is booming. Microbial Cell Factories would like to wish the LAB collaboration many congratulations on their 10th Symposium and we are excited to see what the next meetings will bring.
Posted by Helen Whitaker at 17:15 Comments (0)
Genome Biology’s Viennese waltz at the ISMB
The organizers of the 19th Annual International Conference on Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology (ISMB) could not have predicted that the funeral of an heir to the imperial Hapsburg throne would draw the eyes of the world to Vienna on the 16th July 2011, but so it was that the Viennese streets were overflowing with computational biologists just in time for the city to spend a day in the global spotlight.
The ISMB, which this year was held jointly with the 10th Annual European Conference on Computational Biology, is perhaps the major event of the computational biology calendar. Among the more than 1,700 delegates attending ISMB 2011 were keynote speakers Bonnie Berger, Alfonso Valencia, Luis Serrano, Janet Thornton and Michael Ashburner – not forgetting Olga Troyanskaya, whose post-keynote presentation Q&A from Princeton via Skype would have been a pipedream when the inaugural ISMB was held in 1993.
Hot topics at the conference included RNA-seq, talks on which attracted so many attendees that capacity was stretched beyond standing room only. Related to this, the “data deluge” brought about by high throughput technologies, such as RNA-seq, was a challenge being tackled from a computational standpoint by a number of delegates. To highlight the data problem, Janet Thornton estimated the time taken to transfer the entire 1,000 Genomes Project dataset to Australia as 6 months – a figure made more alarming when you consider that China’s BGI running its machines at full tilt can sequence 2,000 human genomes per day.
Another strong theme of the research presented was personalized medicine. Work being done on this area ranges from systems biology on gene networks in the context of disease to synthetic biology approaches in which “smart” viruses compute therapeutic instructions to give transduced cells dependent on a biological input. Personalized medicine is just one example of a traditionally non-computational research discipline that is being revolutionized by recent advances in bioinformatics. Michal Linial, one of three conference chairs, explained that computational biology is currently “changing all classical biology.”
Computational biologists are perhaps more aware than most of the need to share data as widely as possible, in a way that makes re-use of the data user friendly. Two initiatives to promote data sharing held workshops at the conference: BioSharing and ELIXIR. At the BioSharing workshop, which discussed the bioDBcore database cataloging project, Genome Biology appeared on the panel as a voice of open access publishing and representative of BioMed Central. In addition to Genome Biology, BioMed Central had several other journals represented at the ISMB, including a strong presence from BMC Bioinformatics and GigaScience.
Next year’s ISMB will be held at Long Beach, California, while ECCB 2012 will take place in Basel. Early birds can find out more at http://www.iscb.org/ismb2012 and http://www.bc2.ch/2012/. Genome Biology’s own conference – “Beyond the Genome 2011” – includes a Genome Informatics pre-meeting to be held 19th September in Washington, DC.
Posted by Naomi Attar at 18:09 Comments (0)
I'm very pleased that the program for Beyond the Genome 2011 is now available on the conference website. This BioMed Central conference, organised by our sister journal Genome Biology in conjunction with Genome Medicine,
is now in its second year and promises an exciting program of talks and
posters from key areas of post-genomic research in biology and
medicine, as well as a Genome Informatics Workshop the day before the conference.
The sessions include internationally renowned speakers in a range of fields across biology and medicine. Of particular interest to me are those centred around the application of next-generation sequencing technologies to the fields of cancer and Mendelian disease. I’m particularly looking forward
to the talks which herald the translation of genomic data into the
clinic. This is a young field, but one of increasing importance - much
like Genome Medicine itself! For example, one of the speakers in the
cancer session, Mark Boguski, is part of the pioneering Genomic Medicine Initiative
at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre, Boston, which has implemented a
training program in personalised medicine and genomics for
pathologists. Another key speaker in this area is Stephen Kingsmore,
director of the Center for Pediatric Genomic Medicine at Children’s Mercy Hospital, Kansas City, whose work on a tool for detection of carriers of Mendelian disease made headlines earlier this year.
The conference
is taking place on 19 - 22 September 2011, at The Universities at Shady
Grove, Rockville. The organizing committee includes Elaine Mardis
(Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, USA), Karen Nelson
(J. Craig Venter Institute, Rockville, USA), Mike Schatz (Cold Spring
Harbor Laboratory, NY, USA), Jay Shendure (University of Washington,
Seattle, USA), and Genome Biology’s Editor, Clare Garvey.
Early bird rates are available until this Friday (15th July), so if you have an abstract for oral or poster presentation which you'd like to submit, you should do so now!
I hope to see you there.
Rebecca Furlong
Executive Editor, Genome Medicine
Posted by Rebecca Furlong at 11:09 Comments (0)
Join BioMed Central at ISMB/ECCB
Come and visit BioMed Central
at the upcoming 19thAnnual International Conference on Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology and 10th European Conference on
Computational Biology (ISMB/ECCB 2011), in Vienna 17 – 19 July, where we will be exhibiting at booth #11 right next door to our
colleagues from Springer in booth #12. Drop by the booth to catch up on the
latest news from BioMed Central and grab some giveaways.
The biannual ISMB/ECCB conference is the largest conference on computational biology and brings together the most influential figures in the field. The bioinformatics and systems biology communities are continuing to support open access publishing and as a result BioMed Central’s journal portfolio is growing. The conference is a great way to find out more about our new journals, as well as the latest updates from our established titles BMC Bioinformatics and BMC Systems Biology.
What’s happening at BioMed Central booth (#11):
» Play your cards
right! Come
and show us your poker face to receive some BioMed Central playing cards, so
you can try your luck against your colleagues.
» ISCB Student Council Symposium – BioMed Central is proud to be sponsoring the ISCB Student Council Symposium for the 6th year. We appreciate the importance of supporting young researchers and are pleased to be involved in this event.
» Hear about our new journals – BioMed Central is launching three new journals that are relevant to the computational biology and open science communities. Open Research Computation, edited by Dr Cameron Neylon, GigaScience edited by Dr Laurie Goodman and Open Network Biology edited by Dr Eric Schadt will be launching soon – keep checking the websites for the latest news.
» Meet the team – Come and say hello to Ruth King, Journal Publisher, Simon Harold and Angela Wipperman, BioMed Central’s Executive Editor and Journal Development Editor, respectively, for bioinformatics and Nishkala Thiru, Marketing Executive – they will be able to answer any questions you may have.
We look forward to seeing you!
Posted by Sara Eve at 16:47 Comments (0)
The International Human Microbiome Congress 2011
The International Human Microbiome Congress 2011 held in Vancouver this month could only have taken place in this era of next generation sequencing technologies. The microbiome, consisting of the microbial communities present at different body sites, is difficult to culture. Thus the ability to sequence directly either the genomes or the uniquely identifying 16S rDNA sequence of these colonies resulted in the interesting presentation of the ecological communities that exist within us both in health and disease.
With such large datasets, the need for standards in collecting and analyzing them was discussed in several talks. Owen White (University of Maryland) called for the ease of data sharing and analysis of these large metagenomic datasets, and Mani Arumugam (EMBL) discussed his approach for quantitative metagenomics allowing him to identify 3 different ‘phylotypes’ of bacteria in the human gut microbiome. Furthermore, Curtis Huttenhower (Harvard) showed that there is different information to be gained from analysing ‘who’ is there in a community (species analysis) vs how they’re living there (metabolic pathway analysis). However, returning to community-based analysis Andrew Fernandez (University of Western Ontario) discussed the limitations of current analysis techniques to define co-occurrence and co-exclusion in microbial communities.
Of the major biological themes at the meeting, the link between the gut microbiome, obesity and diet were much discussed. Liping Zhao (Shanghai Jiao Tong University) showed consistent effects of diet changes and lifespan upon the microbiome in mice. Claire Fraser-Liggett, (University of Maryland) on the other hand is studying humans using the unique conditions of a closed population as a background to analyze gut microbiomes and obesity. Alarmingly, Martin Blaser (NYU) presented work in mice linking antibiotic treatment to obesity and changes in gut microbiota. Several others presented talks on the use of probiotics and their ability to alter the composition of gut microbiota. However, Larry Forney’s (Univeristy of Idaho) talk on the vaginal microbiome showed a highly changing ecosystem, highlighting the challenges ahead if we are to manipulate these communities.
The need for more prospective studies with regard to changing microbiomes and disease was emphasised in a talk from Volker Mai (University of Florida) studying necrotising enterocolitis. This was echoed by Francisco Guarner (University Hospital Vall d’Hebron) at the end of his talk who asked whether the association of the bacterial species he found to be associated with ulcerative colitis are causal, a consequence or contributors. With the continued decreasing cost in sequencing, as emphasised by Rob Knight (University of Colorado) in his talk, it is likely that longitudinal studies are the next stage for the human microbiome. They will help us to decipher the microbiome as a cause or consequence of disease.
Posted by Hannah Stower at 17:24 Comments (0)
Evidence-based health and social care reach "new heights" in Colorado
The first Joint Colloquium of the Cochrane and Campbell Collaborations, held last week in Keystone, Colorado, gave members of these two scientific communities the opportunity to identify new ways of working together. The collaborations differ in their scientific focus – Cochrane concentrate on health while Campbell are interested in social care – but both set out to prepare, maintain and disseminate systematic reviews that allow people to make well-informed decisions.
This common ground was the topic of the first plenary session, in which speakers from the Cochrane and Campbell Collaborations outlined the similarities between the organizations and gave their views on what they could learn from one another. Later plenary sessions addressed the importance of making robust evidence available to those dealing with emergent global issues and natural disasters, and ensuring the global reach of evidence-based health and social care. Dr Prathap Tharyan, Director of the South Asian Cochrane Network and Associate Editor of Trials, gave a particularly topical presentation on the role of Evidence Aid – established after the 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean – in responding to recent international events including the earthquake in Haiti and floods in Pakistan.
As might be expected for a meeting of two different organizations, presentation and workshop topics were diverse. Sessions covered a range of methodological topics including publication and outcome reporting bias, systematic review and trial methodology, statistical methods and modelling, and education and training. Many also touched on medical-specialty-specific questions.
The conference took place in the breath-taking and dizzying – literally, in the case of some delegates not accustomed to the altitude – heights of the Colorado mountains. Those delegates not focused on increasing their oxygen intake took advantage of Thursday's free afternoon to enjoy horse riding, hiking and 4x4 adventures. The farewell party that evening offered line dancing, lassoing and an old fashioned sing along by the fire.
In Friday's closing session, speakers reflected on the technologies that have allowed these international communities to develop, and looked at ways to promote the future involvement of men and (particularly) women from all over the world. Next year's Cochrane Colloquium will take place in Madrid, and will focus on the theme of "scientific evidence for health care and patient safety".
Posted by Victoria Thompson at 09:43 Comments (0)
Tony Pawson awarded Signal Transduction Society medal
Professor Anthony James Pawson, for his outstanding contributions to the field of signal transduction research. Whilst remaining at the forefront of cell and molecular biological research, Tony is an active Editorial Board Member of the society journal, Cell Communication and Signaling, as well as BioMed Central's flagship publication, BMC Biology. In his award lecture, Tony described his
more recent research into how complex structures are formed from simpler components. By looking at the evolution of protein-protein interaction domains, we can see how small changes in catalytic activity can make dramatic changes to the dynamic state of the cell. We would like to congratulate Tony on his latest award and look forward to seeing his new work published in Cell Communication and Signaling.Posted by Helen Whitaker at 16:53 Comments (0)
Splicing together collaborations
The recent explosion of publicly available high-throughput data is at least partially responsible for uniting the chromatin, non-coding RNA and alternative splicing fields. This became apparent in the Alternative Splicing – SIG satellite meeting at the recent Annual International Conference on Intelligent Systems in Molecular Biology (ISMB) in Boston, which Genome Biology attended
Public datasets analysed included ChIP-seq data from the lab of Keji Zhao. A mechanistic link between such histone modifications and splicing was explained by Reini Luco of Tom Misteli’s lab. Furthermore, it is not only the chromatin and splicing fields that were united at this meeting. Alternative splicing regulated by noncoding RNAs was also discussed by Eneritz Agirre and Mariano Allo. Again, progression was furthered by the analysis of a public RNA-seq dataset from the lab of Chris Burge. In addition, more ChIP-seq and RNA-seq datasets were presented at the meeting – mining such a wealth of data will only further our understanding of transcript regulation.
Posted by Hannah Stower at 17:59 Comments (0)