"I'm convinced that if I were making an investment or a career decision today, it would be to go into bioinformatics and other areas of applied science."--Tim O'Reilly

Sebastopol, CA--O'Reilly & Associates announced today that registration is now open for the first O'Reilly Bioinformatics Technology Conference, to be held January 28-31, 2002 at the La Paloma Resort in Tucson, AZ.

The O'Reilly Bioinformatics Technology Conference brings together bioinformatics pioneers--programmers, researchers, and scientists--to discuss the milestones, bring clarity to the issues, and chart the future of this exploding field. Participants include: Ewan Birney, Damian Conway, Terry Gaasterland, Georges Grinstein, Gene Myers, Annalee Newitz, James Ostell, Lincoln D. Stein, and Nathan Torkington. See a complete list of speakers here.

More Than Just Sessions

The exchange of ideas and useful information is the hallmark of O'Reilly conferences, and the O'Reilly Bioinformatics Technology Conference is no exception. Forums for exploring more deeply this collision of science and technology (and having a little fun) include:

• "Bio Hackathon"--Continuing the conference firsts, open source bioinformatics developers will meet face-to-face in a hands-on programming event, co-produced by South Africa-based Electric Genetics. The focus of the gathering is to foster collaboration between various open source bioinformatics communities, including the bioperl, biopython, and biojava teams.

• Community Meetings--Three very special events are planned to maximize the Conference's knowledge-sharing opportunity.

  • The Gene Ontology Consortium, a collaboration between model organism databases, not-for-profit and commercial research groups, will offer demonstrations and discussions of current annotation efforts of consortium members and future development plans by users of gene ontology.

  • Bioinformatics.org will hold its annual meeting and organize a specialized Conference track, culminating in the presentation of its first-ever Benjamin Franklin Award to the individual who has promoted freedom and openness in bioinformatics.

  • Open Bioinformatics Foundation (OBF), an umbrella group for the various bio*.org projects, will host informal Birds Of a Feather (BOF) sessions.

  Find more details on the Community Meetings here.

• Bioinformatics Quiz Show--Players show off their knowledge of the arcane, mundane, and inane, hosted by our zany but brainy Nathan Torkington.

Bone Up On Bioinformatics:

• Bioinformatics Weblogs from Lorrie LeJeune, Nathan Torkington, Rael Dornfest, Tim O'Reilly, and others.

• Beginning Perl for Bioinformatics by James Tisdall.
  This book shows biologists with little or no programming experience how to use Perl, a language ideally suited for biological data analysis.

• Developing Bioinformatics Computer Skills by Cynthia Gibas and Per Jambeck
  This recent book will help biologists, researchers, and students develop a structured approach to biological data and the computer tools they'll need to analyze it.

To order review copies of our books, contact Kathryn Barrett at (707) 827-7094 or kathrynb@oreilly.com.

O'Reilly Bioinformatics Technology Conference
Early Bird Registration through December 7, 2001