"From functional genomics to molecular networks and back"

From May 30th to June 4th, 2005, Genopole is organising an Advanced Course dedicated to Functional genomics to molecular network. This first session emphasizing Transcriptomics will gather scientists from various background including biologists, computer scientists, mathematicians and physicists. In a logical move, the proposed speakers originate from these various fields. The pedagogic goal of this Advanced Course is to bring research scientists to top level in the above-defined field of investigation. To reach this goal, 16 world-renowned specialists from the target field deliver over one week 36 hours of lectures and question/answer sessions to an audience of 40-60 selected scientists (selection will be carried out by a scientific committee) with an initial high/medium skill. These participants typically range from the post-doctoral fellow to the young principal investigator. Care is exercised to allow for ample informal discussions between and among lecturers and participants, and two hours are specifically devoted to a forum, so that the course also acts as a melting pot.

Because high-throughput biology produces molecular data, the new scientific context of biological research suggests to emphasize the constructive approaches, starting from molecules up, while incorporating top-down constraints when available. In the case of post-genomic data, the first constructive step is the description and dynamic analysis of molecular networks of interaction.

One major challenge ahead of us is to characterize, explain and control disease processes at the molecular level. This challenge provides most of the impetus for developing new tools and concepts in the very active field of functional genomics. In this respect, the first objective is to deliver high-throughput molecular data; the second objective is to allow computational integration into formal frameworks of these data and of other data from dispersed and heterogeneous biological knowledge. Computational integration is directly relevant to explaining biological processes, with the ultimate hope of controlling diseases. Additionally, computational integration will increasingly be used to design minimal, most discriminative, sets of bench or clinical experiments, thus tremendously cutting time and cost.

 

CONTACT : Catherine Meignen Scientific Events Coordinator GENOPOLE 2, rue Gaston Crémieux, BP 5723 91057 Evry cedex Phone: 33 (0)1 60 87 83 02 Fax: 33 (0) 1 60 87 35 00 E-mail: catherine.meignen@genopole.com