Sebastopol, CA--O'Reilly & Associates invites participation in its second annual Bioinformatics Technology Conference, happening February 3-6, 2003. The conference takes place in San Diego, CA, one of the nation's wellsprings of bioinformatics activity, at the Westin Horton Plaza.

From food to cancer drugs to combating terrorism, bioinformatics is an emerging discipline with far-reaching implications. Biologists and computer programmers are developing powerful tools for storing, managing, and analyzing enormous data sets from biological systems. Given today's economic challenges, these pioneers are focusing more than ever on developing tools that they can put to immediate practical use.

In an interview conducted last year, just before O'Reilly's premier Bioinformatics Technology Conference, keynote speaker Dr. Leroy Hood made a prediction for the future of bioinformatics. "With the enormous increase in hardware capacity, I don't think there are going to be any technical limits on what we can do. So I think the grand challenge is the successful integration of computational biology, or bioinformatics, with biology itself."

The O'Reilly Bioinformatics Technology Conference takes up this challenge of integrating science and computational tools head-on. Practitioners from biology, computer science, software engineering, mathematics, and other related disciplines come together for four days of information exchange, learning, and funall with the hope of taking the practice of bioinformatics to even greater heights. This conference is designed to bridge the gaps between communities and address what may be the most important issue in bioinformatics: how to get the job done.

The conference begins with one day of tutorials, providing deep coverage of essential issues in bioinformatics, such as: data privacy and access; building, managing, and using databases; microarrays; data modeling; sequence analysis; and high-throughput analysis techniques. Three days of conference sessions follow, organized into four tracks: tool design; algorithm design; system administration and infrastructure; and end-user applications. Each track focuses on the technologies, techniques, and tools used to understand and analyze biological data. Specific topics we'll explore are: data formats, mining, structures, and visualization; emerging data types; structural and comparative genomics; building and using clusters; pharmacogenics; pattern recognition; mark-up languages; proteomics; gene annotation; workflow and knowledge management systems; dynamic programming; bio-ethics; ontology creation; and employing BioJava, Bioperl, and Biopython.

CALL FOR PARTICIPATION: PROPOSALS DUE SEPTEMBER 9, 2002

We are interested in ideas and techniques that focus on innovative and practical ways of using tools to extract, process, or predict information that advances biological science, research, education, or commercial activity. We're particularly seeking proposals that highlight case studies, best practices for a tool or system, fundamental skills, and novel solutions to difficult problems.

Individuals and companies interested in making presentations, giving a tutorial, or participating in panel discussions are invited to submit proposals for tutorials and conference presentations (sessions). Presentations by marketing staff or with a marketing focus will not be accepted; neither will submissions made by anyone other than the proposed speaker. If you are interested in participating in or moderating panel discussions, or otherwise contributing to the conference, please let us know (and please include your area of expertise). If you have a suggestion for a panel topic, or for a particularly provocative group of panelists that you'd love to see square off, feel free to send your suggestions to biocon-idea@oreilly.com.

The submission deadline for all proposals is September 9, 2002. Presenters will be notified of selection results by October 7, 2002.

EXHIBITION AND SPONSORSHIP
If you are interested in exhibiting or sponsoring the conference, contact Andrew Calvo at 707-827-7176, or andrewc@oreilly.com.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

For information about the O'Reilly Bioinformatics Technology Conference, visit: conferences.oreilly.com/biocon/

For more details about tutorial and convention session topics, and to submit a proposal, click here.

For press coverage of last year's O'Reilly Bioinformatics Technology Conference, see: conferences.oreilly.com/biocon2002

For articles and news about bioinformatics, visit: bio.oreilly.com

For information on all O'Reilly Conferences, see: conferences.oreilly.com