SteinBlog

We are pleased to announce that a draft programme is now available for the following Wellcome Trust Scientific Conference:

Therapeutic Applications of Computational Biology and Chemistry: TACBAC 2010

1st March – 3rd March 2010

Wellcome Trust Conference Centre, Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge, UK

With the US National Institute of Health’s Molecular Library Initiative and the EMBL-European Bioinformatics Institute’s chemogenomics and cheminformatics programmes, large-scale drug discovery and biological screening data have entered the public domain. We are also witnessing the first efforts to sequence individual human genomes, and are making impressive progress in understanding the genomes of some of the world’s most significant disease-causing organisms. Integration of genomic sequence information with proteomics and metabolomics data provides an unprecedented chance to systematically attack disease on a molecular level. Open access to bioinformatics and cheminformatics data also opens up exciting new opportunities for academic–industrial collaboration. TACBAC 2010 will bring together experts from both the biomedical and the computational domains to explore these novel developments, discuss how to overcome the major challenges, and create new opportunities for applying computational biology and chemistry to disease management and prevention.

Further Information, draft programme & Registration:

http://registration.hinxton.wellcome.ac.uk/display_info.asp?id=177

Abstract deadline: 11^th January 2010

Registration closes: 18^th January 2010

The European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI) in Hinxton, Cambridge, UK, invites applications for PhD studentships in cheminformatics and chemogenomics. There are open positions in the groups of Christoph Steinbeck (Cheminformatics and Metabolism) and John Overington (Chemogenomics). The successful applicant will be able to choose from a variety of different subtopics of these fields and will be enrolled with the University of Cambridge.

The application procedure is outlined at http://www.ebi.ac.uk/training/Studentships/

The deadlines are:
Registration deadline 01 December 2009
Application deadline 15 December 2009

We are looking forward to receiving your application.

Christoph Steinbeck and John Overington

I just opened the Free Software Session at the 5th German Conference on Cheminformatics in Goslar, German. I’m not saying much other than this conference is being twittered about and you’ll find out a lot about it. Here are my slides.

I’ve decided to merge my two blogs which, so far, I wanted to keep separate because of their potentially different readership. But now I think that they are just two connected aspects of my life and, hey, a weblog should report about exactly this. Within certain boundaries, of course .

So, while Steinblog was about my scientific life and event or news related to it, my travel blog reported about two other aspects, the need to travel a lot and the better and less good places that I encounter as well as my passion for good food (liquid and solid) and the places where you get it. I called this travel blog “Reports from a quest for quality and silence” because that’s what it is. And quality and silence is hard to find.

A short while ago I stayed at the Marriott Metro Center in Washington during the 2009 ACS Fall National Meeting. The first night was good, the room is nice and reasonably quiet, as requested. My satisfaction received a first hit when I tried to have breakfast the morning after and, after being seated, found myself  between two competing sources of loud music, one from the lobby and one from the bar in the breakfast restaurant. So much for my quest for silence The local starbucks did a much better job, so I had breakfast there. Overall, the Marriott Metro Center gets a good rating:

Location: 8/10, two blocks away from the conference center, $50 by taxi from the airport.

Room: 7/10 Could be bigger but well fitted with everything you need. Nice wide LCD TV. Internet for $12 a day.

Lobby and Chill-out areas: 5/10. Lobby area is too small, as is the seating area with too few sofas and chairs.

Breakfast: 3/10 See above. Couldn’t really test it but even without the music the place feels a bit like eating in the middle of a highway.

Room Service and Laundry: 8/10, Fast, reliable.

Concierge: 8/10 Very friendly and professional.

Gym: 9/10, well equipped, spacey, every machine you need, yoga mats available.

Overall, my impression was more like 7/10.

non-chem doodle by Dan Paluska

Colleague Noel O’Boyle has already reported it: There is now an open collection of javascript-based chemistry components for the web, called ChemDoodle, released under GPL license by iChemLabs, inc. The stuff looks really neat.

The collection comprises viewers, an editor, a look-up component (try entering accession numbers such as “1″, “2″ or “3″ (you get the point?)) and more. The interesting part is that no java applet needs to be loaded and things are supported by the browser directly. This does not mean that they didn’t have to go through a hell of compatibility testing.

In Goslar's old town ((c) Philipp Andre)

There are a few seats left for the 5th German Conference on Cheminformatics in Goslar and we’ll extend the deadline a bit to give you the chance to register if you haven’t done so.

The GCC is a great chance to meet with around 200 other participants from all areas of life science informatics and listen to talks about the latest research in the field. This year we have an exciting collection of keynote speakers with topics ranging from modelling of biological systems and systems chemistry via computer-aided material design to the latest developments in ChemSpider.

The program is complemented by 60 posters and again prices will be awarded for the three best posters.

Goslar itself is a wonderful place to visit, with its two UNESCO world heritage sites, the old town centre and the ore mine.

We are looking forward to meeting you in Goslar. Registration is still open.

My favorite German computer magzine C’t has an extensive 8-page article about open science and open data (”Rip – Mix – Publish” ). Peter Murray-Rust is cited and so is Jean-Claude Bradley. The article  also speaks about the German National Library of Science and Technology’s (TIB) project to DOI-tag data. In this context: Together with the TIB Hannover and colleagues from FIZ Chemie Berlin and the University of Paderborn, I’m currently working on a DFG-funded feasibility study about storage of primary research data in Chemistry. We are looking at the types and amounts of data to be stored as well as a technical infrastructure to support the scientist in this endeavor.