Systems Biology: Global Regulation of Gene Expression Conference

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spg Hbr NY

Investigators

Abstract

Intellectual Merit: How cells control the expression of their genes is a fundamental problem in biology, yet knowledge of how gene expression is controlled remains sketchy, particularly at the "global" level of the whole cell or organism. The last several years have seen rapid advances in the development of new approaches for analysis of each step of gene expression. Many of these approaches involve a computational component in their design or interpretation, and it is clear that effective collaborations between experimental and computational biologists will be required to come to grips with the complex problem of gene regulation. To encourage free cross-disciplinary exchange of existing ideas and expertise, the meeting "Systems Biology: Global regulation of gene expression" will be held at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on March 23-27, 2010. The meeting aims to provide a mechanism for the establishment of new collaborations, and a forum for discussing new experimental and computational approaches. Twenty-two speakers of international renown have been invited to give oral presentations, and approximately forty-five others will be selected from submitted abstracts from applicants to the meeting. This is a unique feature of Cold Spring Harbor meetings, and ensures that the scientific exchange is largely about unpublished results. Poster sessions will be included to encourage meaningful participation by the non-speaking attendees. In addition, pre-meeting workshops will be held to familiarize molecular biologists and bioinformaticians with the key concepts, terminology, and acronyms needed to understand each others' disciplines. Broader Impacts: Past meetings have attracted a large number of female scientists, students, postdoctoral fellows and early-career investigators, and the current meeting promises to be no exception. One of the two keynote speakers, 25% of the remaining invited speakers, and two of the four meeting organizers are women, and funds provided by NSF will be used to support attendance by student, postdoctoral fellows, and minority participants. This conference is co-funded by the Genes and Genome Systems and Cellular Systems Clusters.