ISCB Newsletter 7-4

3Dsig, the 1st structural bioinformatics special interest group meeting, was held preceding the ISMB/ECCB conference. The 2-day meeting hosted 220 registrants for a program of 8 invited speakers, 20 short presentations, discussion sessions, a round-table panel and novel laptop sessions. Beyond the power-point presentations, the laptop sessions enabled usage of structural bioinformatics software and intimate-group interactions at various levels. 3Dsig was organized by Ilan Samish, Meir Edelman and John Moult, the latter chairing a scientific committee that included Phil Bourne, Luis Serrano, Michael Sternberg, and Ron Unger.

Scientifically,3Dsig's hot topics included extending structure prediction to function prediction as well as interaction analysis (binding sites, protein-protein, docking). Opposite and complementary trends were raised: On one hand, moving to large-scale global analysis using every bit of information that can be datamined. On the other hand, 3Dsig topics included careful and detailed analysis of raw data (e.g. NMR vs. Xray data, effect of crystal-packing, usage of electron-density maps), as well as stretching our understanding/prediction to new horizons (intermediate resolution structures, protein disorder, membrane environment, structure-based evolution analysis). Further, the usage and growing need for combining 'wet' and in silico data was emphasized (e.g. protein interactions, transmembrane topology prediction, RNA structure)

The 3Dsig-2004 booklet is available online: http://3dsig.weizmann.ac.il/2004/3dsigbook.pdf

Submitted by Ralf Blossey, Bioinformatics & Statistical Physics SIG coordinator

The Bioinformatics & Statistical Physics SIG meeting was held in conjunction with ISMB/ECCB 2004 in Glasgow, Scotland for the first time. A previous meeting took place as a Satellite to the first European Conference of Computational Biology 2002 in Saarbrücken, Germany. The main theme of the meeting is the relation between the physical and functional properties of biomolecules (DNA, proteins) and biological systems; new technological directions were addressed by contributions to the function of bio-nanotechnological devices, in particular for DNA hybridization, and by studies of biological networks, in particular those of gene regulation.

22 talks were presented to an audience of approximately 60 participants. As judged by the audience’ and speakers’ feedback, the meeting was very well-received. For more complete information about this SIG and pdf files of the presentations please see http://iri.ibl.fr/bn/pages/SIG/index.html

Audience, speakers and this organizer believe that the topical theme is timely and of growing interest to the community of computational biologists. Future editions should, however, make the SIG a true forum for exchange between physicists and bioinformaticians. I am therefore grateful for any suggestions or contributions from ISCB members in order to help achieve this goal. Please feel free to contact me at ralf.blossey@iemn.univ-lille1.fr.

Submitted by Phil Lord and Robert Stevens, Bio-Ontologies SIG co-organizers

The Annual Bio-Ontologies SIG at ISMB has now reached its seventh year. An Ontology is a formal representation of knowledge which can be used to classify and organise biological phenomena. Although ontologies have been used for many years, the success of the Gene Ontology has ensured that they are a standard part of the bioinformatics armoury. The Bio-Ontologies SIG serves as a general forum to present both "News and Views" and early research. It provides a natural place in which cutting edge bio-ontology research can be presented.

This year’s Bio-Ontologies SIG was no exception, with 12 research talks, a keynote by Dr. David Shotton of the BioImage database, and a lively panel session, presenting to an audience of 80-100 people. For the first time, a selection of these talks will be published in a special issue of Comparative and Functional Genomics.