[Biojava-l] CFP: NETTAB 2003

[Paolo Romano]

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I apologize for duplications. Paolo Romano
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               NETTAB 2003 Call for Papers

                    Bioinformatics for
the management, analysis and interpretation of microarray data

           November 27-28, 2003, Bologna, Italy 

                http://www.nettab.org/2003/

NETTAB workshops are a series of workshops focused on the most
promising and innovative ICT tools and to their usefulness in
Bioinformatics. Participation is at an internation level, mainly
European, and speakers are among the most known researchers in
the field.

NETTAB workshops:

- Focus on a well defined, emerging, promising ICT technology
  (not on a specific biological research topic)
- Introduce the basic knowledge related to the technology under
  analysis, in a non trivial way
- Outline the promising features of the technology in bioinformatics
- Show some valuable examples in bioinformatics or different domains
- Allow for as much discussion as possible
- Demonstrate "how it works" practically, through demos or tutorials

Previous editions were devoted to: "CORBA and XML: towards a
bioinformatics integrated network environment" (Genova, 17-19
May 2001) and "Agents in Bioinformatics" (Bologna, 12-14 July 2002).
You are welcome to visit the workshops' web site at
http://www.nettab.org/ .

The NETTAB 2003 workshop will be focused on the "Bioinformatics
for the management, analysis and interpretation of microarray data".
See http://www.nettab.org/2003/ .

This edition will be organized also with the help of the Hormone
Responsive Breast Cancer (HRBC) Genomics Network
(http://www.hrbc-genomics.net/) - about 100 researchers from about
15 different institutions, most of them will be at the NETTAB worskhop.
The network has been funded by the Italian Ministry of Research
(FIRB project) for a three-years research project on the breast cancer.
The network makes large use of microarray technology, and it is going
to select common platforms (both experimentals and bioinformatics)
to generate comparable results in different labs. 

In the last years, biomedical research has evolved through the 
development of new technologies, as the microarray technology, able to 
assay gene expression for thousands of genes at a time.

This "high-throughput" technology gives the researchers the opportunity
to investigate with a new and powerful approach the underlying genetic
causes of many human diseases, as well as physiological aspects of
growth and development.

After few years, during which the experimental platforms and protocols
have been assessed, microarrays applications are now quickly growing up.
In the meantime, bioinformatics is solicited to create the tools of
analysis and interpretation to understand the biological phenomena under
investigation.

Analysis of massive gene expression data requires statistical methods,
data mining approaches, and data base storage and searches tools, but
most relevant is the standardization of experimental protocols, data
format, information describing experimentals, and other experimental and 
analytical aspects, to be able to exploit data sets from different 
laboratories in large scale analysis of data.

Workshop aims are:
- to collect the latest ideas, achievements and proposals in the 
  application of bioinformatics to the microarray data analysis and 
  interpretation,
- to strengthen the relationships within bioinformatics community, also
  in view of a wider sinergical effort towards common scientific aims,
- to improve cooperation between bioinformatics and biomedical communities.

The worshop is organized in sessions, where invited speakers present
the state of art of the session's topic, and open discussions.
Open discussions will also be based upon submitted issues and topics.
Tutorials are also foreseen. A limited number of submissions will be
admitted as oral communication

A call for position papers, posters and oral communication is now open.

Submitted contributions must address at least one of the following issues: 

standardization of experiments and data, including: 
- identification of information requirements, 
- use cases, 
- data models, 
- data structures, 
- data exchange formats, 
- submission formats, 
- comparison of platforms, 
- etc... 

analysis and management tools, including: 
- database management systems, 
- clustering tools, 
- etc... 

applications of bioinformatics to microarray experiments, including: 
- integrative data analysis, 
- gene expression analysis, 
- wide genome analysis, 
- toxicogenomics, 
- oncogenomics, 
- any-omics, 
- etc.... 

Authors are encouraged to submit: 

Position papers: submit a short abstract (max 1 A4 pages in length,
  size 12pt, in pdf or MS Word format) specifying research interests
  and issues to be discussed during the workshop. Authors submitting
  position papers do not engage themselves to present a poster.
  Instead, they will be invited to introduce the issues during the
  discussions. Abstracts will be printed in the abstracts book, but
  won't be inserted in the conference proceedings. 

Posters: submit an extended abstract (max 3 A4 pages, size 12pt, in
  pdf or MS Word format). Abstracts will be reviewed and acceptation
  will be communicated to authors. Posters will be inserted in the
  abstract book and, only if actually presented at the workshop, in
  the conference proceedings. 

Oral Communications: submit an extended abstract (max 5 A4 pages, size
  12pt, in pdf or MS Word format) as for posters. Only a very limited
  number of abstracts will be selected as oral communications.
  All abstracts submitted as oral communication but not selected will
  automatically be considered as posters. 

Abstracts must be sent by email to: papers2003 at nettab.org 

Deadlines: 

Abstracts due: November 10, 2003. 
Notification to authors: November 17, 2003. 
Early registration: November 17, 2003 

On behalf of Organizing and Scientific Committees

Paolo Romano
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Paolo Romano (paolo.romano at istge.it)
National Cancer Research Institute
Largo Rosanna Benzi, 10, I-16132, Genova, Italy
Tel: +39-010-5737-288  Fax: +39-010-5737-295