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Mathematical Biology Newsletter
Volume 16 #2 - June 2003
Edited by: Elizabeth H Scholl
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Table of Contents
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Mathematical Biology Newsletter
Volume 16 #2 - June 2003
Edited by: Elizabeth H Scholl
|
Table of Contents
Letter from the President
May 2003
Dear colleagues,
Our annual meeting, scheduled for Dundee, August 6-9, 2003, is soon upon us. The meeting includes an exciting breadth of material, ranging from Whole Cell Modeling to Bioinformatics. There is also to be a special minisymposium focusing on the Contribution and Aspects of the Work of J.D. Murray, a pioneer in modern mathematical biology. The fourth Okubo Prize for outstanding research in mathematical biology by a junior scientist will be presented at the meeting.
The Dundee group has put together an excellent web page with information and registration instructions at http://www.maths.dundee.ac.uk/smb03/. The deadline for submission of abstracts is May 30 and for registration is June 27. I hope to see you there.
While mathematical biology is gaining recognition and popularity, challenges continue for young scientists. The mixture of biology, modeling and mathematical methods needed for good science requires special effort to master. The SMB mentoring program is a terrific way to help young scientists with mathematical biology careers and to offer senior scientists an opportunity to build new interactions and learn from their junior colleagues.
At each annual meeting, the board of directors and committee chairs meet to discuss issues and projects. The discussion continues with SMB members at the general meeting. Some issues coming up for discussion are: education and research initiatives and awareness, world outreach, electronic journal subscriptions for members, reciprocity with the European and Japanese societies, and future meeting sites. Your suggestions and input as members are greatly valued. Please do not hesitate to contact me with input.
Best wishes for a productive summer,
Mark Lewis
Bulletin of Mathematical Biology is Available On-Line
The Bulletin of Mathematical Biology is presently available free of charge on-line. It can be found at ScienceDirect, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00928240
International Conference on Mathematical Biology and 2003 Annual Meeting Society for Mathematical Biology (SMB)
August 6-9, 2003
University of Dundee, Dundee, UK
http://www.maths.dundee.ac.uk/smb03
Important Dates:
The meeting will consist of:
Plenary Speakers:
| A. Fogelson | (University of Utah, USA) |
| P. Hogeweg | (University of Utrecht, Netherlands) |
| L. Keshet | (University of British Columbia, Canada) |
| P. Maini | (University of Oxford, UK) |
| J. Murray | (University of Seattle, USA) |
| A. Stevens | (Max Plank Institute, Mathematical Sciences, Leipzig, Germany) |
Minisymposia and Chairs:
Web page: http://www.maths.dundee.ac.uk/smb03
The web site is open for conference participation and registration.
Local Organising Committee:
A. Anderson, G. Barton, M. Chaplain, F. Davidson, S. Hubbard, B. Vasiev, C. Weijer
International Scientific Committee:
W. Alt, N. Bellomo, V. Capasso, M. Lewis, P. Maini, M. Mimura, H. Othmer, N. Shigesada
Social Events:
Mentoring Program for Junior Scientists Attending the 2003 Annual Meeting of the Society for Mathematical Biology
by Gerda DeVries
Objective
The Society for Mathematical Biology recognizes the importance of mentoring in the development of a successful career in mathematical biology. Following the successful pilot mentoring program at previous annual meetings, we are again offering a mentoring program for the benefit of junior scientists attending the 2003 Annual Meeting of the Society for Mathematical Biology and International Conference on Mathematical Biology, to be
held at the University of Dundee, Dundee, United Kingdom, August 6 - 9, 2003. The goal of this program is two-fold:
How does it work?
If you would like to participate, either as a mentee or as a mentor (or both), contact the coordinator of the mentoring program (see below). The coordinator will find suitable matches, based on research interests and/or special requests.
It is expected that the bulk of the interaction between the mentor and mentee will occur during the conference, although initial contact may be made before the conference. Of course we hope that the relationship is mutually satisfying to the mentor and mentee, and will continue after the conference!
At the conference, we envision the following types of interactions, as the mentor and mentee see fit:
We ask that mentors and mentees keep their discussions confidential to protect the privacy of everyone involved.
How do I sign up?
Please contact the coordinator of the mentoring program by July 15, 2003:
Gerda de Vries
Department of Mathematical & Statistical Sciences
University of Alberta
Edmonton, Alberta
T6G 2G1
CANADA
email: devries@math.ualberta.ca
fax: (780) 492 - 6826
In your message, please include the following information:
The Third Virtual Conference on Genomics and Bioinformatics
September 16-19, 2003
hosted by North Dakota State University
http://www.ndsu.edu/virtual-genomics/conference_2003.htm
Call for papers and 2003 Proceedings
Advances in sequence analysis, transcriptional profiling, protein structural elucidation as well other genomic techniques are producing an overwhelming accumulation of data and the shift in the way biological research is conducted. As new disciplines are integrated, the "Virtual Conferences on Genomics and Bioinformatics" was developed as a way to provide an advanced collaborative environment for the exchange and discussion of information related to innovations of the post-genomic era. Since 2001, the Virtual Conferences is featuring high profile researchers and educators working actively in the development of new applications to understand complex biological systems. Without registration fees, and using Access Grid technology and live video streaming, the 2003 Virtual Conference is broadcast simultaneously to more 2000 researchers in 40 countries and 33 states within the US.
The main goals of the Virtual Conference in Genomics and Bioinformatics:
Gordon Research Conference on Theoretical Biology and Biomathematics
June 6-11, 2004
Tilton Academy, Tilton, NH
The next Conference on Theoretical Biology and Biomathematics is being organized by Tim Elston and Raymond Mejia, who encourage you to mark your calendar now.
The intent is to have an action-packed week of lectures and posters on topics of current and emerging importance along with the notable convivial activities of a GRC. More on the program will appear in a subsequent issue of this Newsletter
Please see http://www.grc.uri.edu/ periodically for updates. You can also see the program for past conferences at the GRC web site.
We look forward to your participation in the conference.
Introduction to Modern Concepts in Biology for Mathematical and Physical Scientists
June 23 - July 3, 2003
DIMACS Center, CoRE Building, Rutgers University
The BioMaPS/DIMACS tutorial "Introduction to Modern Concepts in Biology for Mathematical and Physical Scientists" is a 2-week intensive program divided into three related sections:
The goal of the tutorial is to introduce participants to topics in molecular and cell biology that are relevant to those who wish to explore or initiate work at the interface among biology, mathematics, computer science, chemistry, and physics. The tutorial will be appropriate for graduate students, postdocs, and mid-career scientists who wish to change direction. The first week of the tutorial, entitled "The DNA Revolution," was designed by William Sofer, Professor of Genetics and member of the faculty of the Waksman Institute at Rutgers University, to introduce the fundamentals of modern molecular biology, genetics, and biotechnology to participants who have little background in biology or biochemistry. In addition, the class will examine scientific questions that interest present-day biomedical researchers. The emphasis will be on problems that can be addressed through quantitative approaches that are currently considered the domain of physics, chemistry, mathematics, or computer science. Lively discussions suitable for postgraduate training of physical scientists and mathematicians should be expected for these sessions.
Graduate students and others interested in the interface among the biological, mathematical, and physical sciences typically have extensive training in chemistry, physics, mathematics, statistics, or computer science but are less familiar with the biology-oriented, basic knowledge that modern biologists have acquired. This foundation is indispensable for the identification and appreciation of the main problems in biomedical research. Participation in the BioMaPS Institute/DIMACS tutorial will be a major step in building the foundation.
For more information, please visit our website at: http://dimacs.rutgers.edu/Workshops/Biomaps/
Short Courses on the Mathematics of Biological Complexity
Supported by the National Institutes of Health GM59924-02
This continuing series of Short Courses held at the University of Tennessee is oriented towards biology-trained individuals, including graduate students, biology faculty, MDs and those desiring to work in emerging fields in computational biology. The objective is to provide a rapid introduction to the mathematical and computational topics appropriate for understanding current research in biological complexity. Two additional courses being held in the next few months still have space available:
Course 2: Optimal Control Theory in Application to Biology: July 9 - 12, 2003
Course 3: Modeling the evolutionary genetics of complex phenotypes: a hierarchical approach from sequences to populations: September 7-10, 2003
Complete details are available at http://www.tiem.utk.edu/courses/
Significant financial support is available to cover lodging, travel and registration expenses for attendees from non-profit institutions. Potential attendees are urged to apply to attend any of these courses as soon as possible.
24th Annual Meeting of CAIMS/SCMAI
2003 SIAM Annual Meeting
First Joint Meeting of CAIMS and SIAM
June 16-20, 2003
Fairmont The Queen Elizabeth Hotel, Montreal, QC, Canada
About The Meeting
SIAM and the 2003 Organizing Committee invite you to attend our annual meeting in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, June 16-20, 2003, at the Fairmont, Queen Elizabeth Hotel.
Conference Themes
Invited Plenary Speakers
Invited Topical Speakers
Registration information is now available at http://www.siam.org/meetings/an03/
Summer School
The Mathematics of Bioinformatics
August 27-29, 2003
CRM, University of Montreal, Montreal, Canada
Bioinformatics is a rapidly expanding field driven by the increasing availability of massive genomic data and the research perspectives of molecular biology and genetics. The purpose of this school is to survey the various aspects of bioinformatics, with attention to the mathematical, statistical and algorithmic aspects known as computational biology. Each presentation will include an introduction to the field, its concepts and general methods, followed by a discussion of current trends in research. Topics will include sequence alignment, the search for biological motifs, RNA structure prediction, genomic rearrangements, sequencing strategies, the analysis of DNA polymorphism, and the inference of metabolic, transcription and regulatory networks from microarray data. The speakers on each topic are all well-known researchers in this area.
Dynamic Days 2003
XXIII Annual Conference
4 Decades of Chaos 1963-2003
September 24-27, 2003
Palma de Mallorca, Spain
Dynamic Days is an annual interdisciplinary conference designed to stimulate interactions amongst researchers with interests in dynamical systems, particularly those with nonlinear aspects. Dynamic Days 2003 will take place on the campus of the University of the Balearic Islands, Palma de Mallorca, Spain.
Deadline for abstract submission: July 31, 2003
A limited amount of funding is available tio enable students to attend who could not otherwise afford to do so, especially those from eastern Europe. Details regarding funding, online registration, and additional information can be found on the conference web pages at
Some Good News!
Submitted by Patrick Nelson
I would like to pass along some good news for the SMB community that Trace Jackson has recently been awarded a Sloan Fellowship and a Woodrow Wilson Career enhancement fellowship!
International Symposium on Modeling Physiological Flows
September 1-3, 2003
Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland
http://ima.epfl.ch/cmcs/MPF2003/
The aim of the International Symposium on Modelling of Physiological Flows is to gather researchers in various branches of Applied Mathematics and Computational Fluid Dynamics with a special focus on bio-flows. The Symposium is co-sponsored by the Haemodel EU project and the Bernoulli Center (EPFL).
As in many other fields of applied sciences, mathematical and numerical models are about to play an increasing role in biology and medicine. In particular, the mathematical and numerical investigation of physiologic flows is destined to represent one of the major mathematical challenges of the next decades. The conference will have a broad scope and will include, among others, the following topics:
More information about this symposium can be found at the website: http://ima.epfl.ch/cmcs/MPF2003/
Mathematical Population Dynamics (MPD7)
and
Stochastic Modeling of Biointeraction (Destobio 3)
June 21-25, 2004
Trento, Italy
http://www.science.unitn.it/~dbio-mpd
We announce a Joint Meeting, the Seventh International Conference on Mathematical Population Dynamics (MPD7), and the Third International Conference on "Deterministic and Stochastic Modeling of Biointeraction" (DESTOBIO 3), organized by the Department of Mathematics of the University of Trento, Italy, June 21-25, 2004. The meeting will be held in Povo (TN), Italy, seat of the School of Science of the University of Trento.
Topics of the Conference:
Topics of the conference will be the use of mathematical models in different areas of biology, especially ecology (including epidemic spread), cell population dynamics (including immunology, tumor growth), and molecular biology (including molecular evolution and genetics, genomics).
Structure:
The Conference will consist of plenary lectures, parallel sessions on some
of the topics outlined above, plus contributed talks and posters.
Everybody is invited to suggest proposals for sessions in related areas
any time before January 1, 2004. A proposal form will be made available on
the web page http://www.science.unitn.it/~dbio-mpd
A second announcement including plenary speakers, deadlines, and some logistic details will appear in the Summer
of 2003. For any information or suggestion, or to be included in our mailing
list, please contact the members of the Organizing Committee or send an e-mail
to dbio-mpd@science.unitn.it
Modeling and Simulation of Biological Regulatory Processes
ECCB Satellite Meeting
October 1, 2003
Ecole Normale Supérieure (Paris)
Subject, aims, and audience
In the framework of the European Conference on Computational Biology (ECCB), we propose to organize a one-day satellite meeting on the modeling and simulation of biological regulatory processes. Although the focus will be on the mathematical and computational analysis of genetic regulatory networks, we also wish to establish links with related work on metabolic and signal transduction networks. The aim of the satellite meeting is, on the one hand, to provide a forum for computational biologists to discuss methods and computer tools available for the dynamical analysis of biological regulatory processes. On the other hand, we would like to bring together computational and experimental biologists in order to foster collaborations leading to useful applications of the methods and tools.
If you wish to attend the satellite meeting, please send an e-mail to Hidde.de-Jogn@inrialpes.fr. No registration fees are required.
Computational Modelling in Medicine
September 17-19, 2003
Edinburgh, Scotland
Held under the auspices of the International Centre for Mathematical Sciences (ICMS), and incorporating the twelfth Scottish Computational Mathematics Symposium (SCMS). The meeting is supported by EPSRC and LMS. The first day will follow the usual SCMS format, and the second and third days will involve a mixture of invited and contributed talks.
Conference themes:
Mathematical modelling and numerical simulation play a major role in many important medical applications. The meeting will be organized around the two interlinked themes of the vascular and pulmonary systems and soft tissue mechanics. The purpose is to bring together people who work on mathematical modelling, numerical analysis, simulation and direct medical applications related to these areas, and to act as a focus to stimulate further research and the development of even more realistic medical simulations.
Invited speakers
Registration details and call for papers available at www.ma.hw.ac.uk/icms/meetings/2003/cmm/
Registration deadline: July 4 (registration deadline for SCMS day only is September 5).
First Call for Papers
Special Issue on "Neuromorphic Systems"
International Journal of Robotics & Automation (IJRA), Vol.19, 2004
http://www.actapress.com/journals/specialra6.htmThere has recently been a growing interest in neuromorphic systems research, which is part of the larger field of computational neuroscience. Neuromorphic systems are implementations in silicon of systems whose architecture and design are based on neurobiology. In general, however, neuromorphic systems research is not restricted to one specific implementation technology. This growing area proffers exciting possibilities, such as sensory systems that can compete with human senses, pattern recognition systems that can run in real time, and neuron models that can truly emulate living neurons. Neuromorphic systems are at the intersection of neuroscience, computer science, and electrical engineering. The earliest neuromorphic systems were concerned with providing an engineering approximation of some aspects of sensory systems, such as the detection of sound in the auditory system or the detection of light in the visual system. More recently, there has been considerable work on robot control systems, on modeling various types of neurons, and on including adaptation in hardware systems. Biorobotics, or the intersection between biology and robotics, is a growing area in neuromorphic systems. Biorobotics aims to investigate biological sensorimotor control systems by building robot models of them. This includes the development of novel sensors and actuators, hardware and software emulations of neural control systems, and embedding and testing devices in real environments.The aim of this Special Issue on Neuromorphic Systems is to bring together active researchers from different areas of this interdisciplinary field, and to report on the latest advances in this area. Deadline for paper submission: June 30, 2003
Call for Papers
Acta Biotheoretica:
An international journal on the mathematical and
philosophical foundations of biological and biomedical science
Acta Biotheoretica is an international peer-reviewed journal on theoretical biology first published in 1935. From the inception of the journal, theoretical biology has been given a broad interpretation, as comprising both the mathematical and the philosophical foundations of biological science. Acta Biotheoretica is aimed at an interdisciplinary readership of biologists, mathematicians and philosophers of science. The journal is published annually by Kluwer Academic Publishers (2003: volume 51; 4 issues per volume).
Acta Biotheoretica publishes articles on any topic in mathematical biology or philosophy of biology. The journal is also open for contributions from closely related fields, such as bioinformatics, and the mathematical and philosophical foundations of biomedical science. Acta Biotheoretica publishes regular articles reporting on original research (with a limit of 10,000 words), invited review articles, and three types of short contributions (with a limit of 2,000 words): discussion notes, "Ideas in Theoretical Biology" (short papers intended to serve as the upshot for discussion), and book reviews.
All submissions are welcome. The Managing Editor especially invites philosophers of biology/science to submit manuscripts for publication in Acta Biotheoretica. Researchers in the early stages of their careers are also encouraged to submit contributions.
For further information please see the journal's website at http://www.kluweronline.nl/issn/0001-5342.
PhD Studentship, Ecological Modelling
Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh
We have funding for a PhD studentship on "Modelling Periodic Waves in Cyclic Populations", starting October 2003. The project is jointly supervised by Jonathan Sherratt (Heriot-Watt University) and Xavier Lambin (University of Aberdeen). The project involves some fieldwork as well as modelling, and is suitable either for a student with a mathematics background, or for a student with an ecological background and with some mathematical experience.
For further details, see http://www.ma.hw.ac.uk/~jas/studentship.html
Postdoctoral Positions at the Vanderbilt Program in Human Genetics
Nashville, TN
The Vanderbilt Program in Human Genetics (VPHG) has postdoctoral positions immediately available in computational genetics and biomathematics. The successful applicants will integrate the fields of genetics and mathematics to tackle unique analytical problems. Applicants must hold a doctorate degree in an appropriate field (e.g. Genetics, Mathematics, Physics, Molecular Biology, Biostatistics).
The VPHG is an interdisciplinary program involving multiple clinical and basic science departments spanning multiple schools. It has an active program in the development and testing of new statistical methods for gene discovery in complex diseases. These methods can be applied to active research programs in dissecting the genetics of complex traits in numerous areas including neurological, pulmonary, behavioral, cardiovascular, cancer, and ophthalmological diseases. The VPHG has extensive core facilities for family ascertainment, DNA handling, data analysis, and bioinformatics, including access to VAMPIRE, a 340-processor parallel computer. The VPHG occupies over 9,000 square feet of newly appointed wet and dry lab space. The successful applicant will also enjoy the benefits of the highly collaborative VPHG atmosphere.
Applicants should contact Melissa Finney Webb in the Vanderbilt Program for Human Genetics or can submit a curriculum vita, three letters of reference, and a concise statement of research interests to:
Postdoctoral Search Committee
Program in Human Genetics
Vanderbilt University Medical Center
519 Light Hall
Nashville, TN 37232-0700
Email: finneymd@phg.mc.vanderbilt.edu
Phone: 615-322-4313
Please send comments and corrections for this edition of the SMB Newsletter to: editor@smb.org