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Laboratory Focus September 2013 www.laboratoryfocus.ca
ICSB 2013:
Discovering in Denmark From August 30 to September 3, the international systems biology community gathered in Copenhagen, Denmark for the 14th International Conference on Systems Biology (ICSB). Known as the number one event for systems biology scientists and researchers, the event is an annual series of conferences that attracts tops scientists from across the globe. It was first launched in 2000, by the International Society of Systems Biology (ISSB) in Tokyo.The ICSB conference brings together interdisciplinary researchers, in order to advance biomedical research, health care and drug development. The hope is that by stimulating new interactions at the interfaces of biology, chemistry, engineering and computer science, we can develop and apply new technologies to advance biomedical research. Systems biology is a continually growing science, with new technologies and techniques being developed to push our understanding of complex biological systems further. This year, speakers delivered presentations on diverse topics, including metagenomics, the industrial applications of systems biology, metabolomics, precision medicine, systems biology for healthcare data, modeling, protein interaction, drug discovery, genetic networks, signaling networks, imaging, synthetic biology and many others. In addition to the main conference, workshops and tutorials took place prior to the main conference (August 29 to 30) and just after the main conference (September 3 to 4). While the event was held at the Tivoli Congress Center in Copenhagen, the workshops were held at the Technical University of Denmark. Both the Technical University of Denmark and Copenhagen University are leaders in systems biology and biomedical research. During a workshop at ICSB 2013, Thermo Fisher Scientific announced its partnership with the Department of Systems Biology at the Technical University of Denmark. Together they hope to further our understanding of how cellular protein networks drive important diseases. The most touching element of the conference was the fact that it was held in honour of Dr. Tony Pawson, one of Canada’s greatest scientists and medical researchers, who passed away earlier this year. Considered one of Canada’s most respected scientists, Dr. Pawson was both a talented researcher and leader at Mount Sinai’s Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute. His research reshaped our understanding of how cells communicate, and his work helped develop treatments for many diseases. The fact that this international conference was offered as a tribute to Dr. Pawson is a great testament to both his lifetime of work and his accomplishments. Moreover it reflects the high esteem his international peers held for him as a true pioneer in the field. The next ICSB conference will run from September 14 to 18, 2014 in Melbourne, Australia. For more info on this conference, go to www.icsb.com.
app review QIAGEN App
From QIAGEN GmbH https://itunes.apple.com/ke/app/qiagen-app/id392583246?mt=8 This free-to-install app for iOS devices is meant to alleviate some of the tedium sometimes found in daily lab work. Its main features are multiple conversion and dilution calculators and tables of common lab buffers. As an added bonus, the app also sports more than 20 tutorial videos on technologies in a variety of application areas such as automation and genotyping. Both functionally and design-wise, this app is simple and clean and that’s just fine because, this app is meant to be a tool not a toy. In this respect it accomplishes this goal admirably and should be something that scientists check out.
Molecules
From Sunset LakeSoftware https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/molecules/id284943090?mt=8 Created by Sunset Lake Software, Molecules is a free app for iOS devices that allows users to view 3D renderings of molecules with the ability to zoom in and out or move the camera vertically or horizontally using your fingers in order to get a better look at the models. The app comes pre-loaded with a ton of molecules to look at but you can get more for the app by visiting the RCSB Protein Data Bank (http://www.rcsb.org/pdb), an international repository of biological molecules, and/or NCBI’s PubChem (http://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih. gov), a public database of compounds. This app is a fantastic resource and anyone who works in chemistry or biology should consider downloading it.
