Call For Papers & Participation

The end of the human genome project is getting close. The first human reference sequence will be available within the next few years. It is now apparent that another treasure lies buried in the inherent variability in the individual genomes of humans. This genome variability is after all what makes any of us different, with different susceptibilities to disease and environmental factors, and different response to drug treatment. Among the most common sequence variability in human sequences are the biallelic single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), which are estimated to exist at least every 1kb.

Recently there has been considerable interest in using SNPs for identification of genes involved in complex diseases and for pharamacogenetics. The human genetics community, both private and academic, is engaged in large scale SNP discovery efforts and assay development. With the imminent development of high throughput methodologies for automating the SNP discovery and screening process, it is likely that many if not all of the common polymorphisms will be identified and characterized in the next several years. Further to the applications of SNPs in genetic association studies of complex diseases, the evolutionary implications of SNP distribution among populations are intriguing.

As is often the case, data production may outpace current data management and analysis capabilities. New specialized SNP databases are being designed and implemented to capture the impending flood of polymorphism data. Comprehensiveness of the captured data and the exploration of its intellectual content is essential. Mapping and validation of the usefulness of SNPs is also critical; early studies of the SNP variation in human genes show considerable differences in the extent of linakge disequilibrium across loci, suggesting that not all SNPs will be equally informative in linkage (or association) studies. Computational methods and tools to handle and analyze polymorphism data flow will certainly play an important role in this challenge.

The PSB 2000 session Analysis, Management and Application of SNP Data aims to provide a timely forum in this problem, bringing together computer scientists, bioinformatics specialists and biologists, from academia and industry, to tackle the forthcoming problems in the utilization of SNP information.

We encourage academic, industrial and government scientists to submit manuscripts. In addition to a session for oral presentation of novel peer-reviewed contributions, there will be a panel discussion devised to foster exchange between industry and academic scientists. Participants are invited to discuss their issues with other peers in this panel session. Posters and computer demonstrations are also requested to complement the session.

The contributions should pose and discuss a specific problem that the biocomputing community will need to address, describe models, or propose specific solutions to a problem. Sequence polymorphisms will be the common theme, but the computational or theoretical contributions can span areas ranging from population genetics and evolution to visualization and data management. Among the anticipated topics are:

• Automation of large scale SNP genotyping.
• Data management and integration for SNP genotyping systems.
• Evolutionary aspects of genome variability and SNP analysis.
• Ontologies for human genome variation.
• SNP database mining and knowledge discovery.
• Statistical methods for SNP analysis.
• Tools for high throughput SNP discovery and screening.
• Visualization and analysis of SNP data.

PSB will publish accepted full papers in an archival proceedings indexed in MEDLINE. All contributed papers will be rigorously peer-reviewed by at least three referees. A limited number of papers will be selected for a 30-minute oral presentation to the full assembled conference. Accepted poster abstracts will be distributed at the conference separately from the archival Proceedings. To be eligible for Proceedings publication, each full paper must be accompanied by a cover letter stating that it contains original unpublished results not currently under consideration elsewhere.

All papers must be submitted to altman@smi.stanford.edu in electronic format. The file formats we accept are: postscript (*.ps), adobe acrobat (*.pdf) and Microsoft Word documents (*.doc). Attached files should be named with the last name of the first author (e.g. altman.ps, altman.pdf, or altman.doc). Hardcopy submissions or unprocessed TEX or LATEX files will be rejected without review.

Each paper must be accompanied by a cover letter. The cover letter must state the following:

• The email address of the corresponding author
• The specific PSB session that should review the paper or abstract
• The submitted paper contains original, unpublished results, and is not currently under consideration elsewhere.
• All co-authors concur with the contents of the paper.

Submitted papers are limited to twelve (12) pages in our publication format. Please format your paper according to instructions found at:

ftp://ftp-smi.stanford.edu/pub/altman/psb/.

If figures can not be easily resized and placed precisely in the text, then it should be clear that with appropriate modifications, the total manuscript length would be within the page limit. Color pictures can be printed at the expense of the authors. The fee is $500 per page of color pictures, payable at the time of camera ready submission.

• Paper submissions due: July 12, 1999
• Notification of paper acceptance: August 27, 1999
• Camera ready copy of accepted papers due: September 24, 1999
• Abstract deadline: November 1, 1999
• Meeting: January 5-9, 2000

Q1. How can my paper be included in PSB's hardbound proceedings?

PSB publishes peer-reviewed full papers in an archival proceedings. Each accepted paper will be allocated 12 pages in the proceedings volume. Paper authors are required to register (and pay) for the conference by the time they submit their camera-ready copy, or the paper will not be published.

Q2. How does a PSB publication compare to a journal publication?

PSB papers are strenuously peer reviewed, and must report significant original material. PSB proceedings are indexed in MEDLINE and other indexing services. All accepted full papers will be indexed just as if they had appeared in a journal. It is too early to assess the impact of a PSB paper quantitatively, but we will take every action we can to improve the visibility and significance of PSB publication.

Q3. If I do not want to submit a full paper to PSB, but wish to participate?

Authors who do not wish to submit a full paper are welcome to submit one page abstracts, which will be distributed at the meeting separately from the archival proceedings, and are also welcome to display standard or computer-interactive posters.

Q4. How can I obtain travel support to come to PSB?

We have been able to offer partial travel support to many PSB attendees in the past, including most authors of accepted full papers who request support. However, due to our sponsoring agencies' schedules, we are unable to offer travel awards before the registration (and payment) deadlines for authors. NO ONE IS GUARANTEED TRAVEL SUPPORT. Travel support applications will be available on our web site (http://psb.stanford.edu).