Call for Papers and Participation
Session on BIOGEOMETRY: Applications of Computational
Geometry to Molecular Structure.
at the Pacific Symposium in Biocomputing 2005
It is widely believed that the geometry of biomolecules plays a crucial role in defining the relationship between their structure and function. Yet geometrical methods are relatively uncommon in computational biology because several unresolved representational and algorithmic issues remain. BioGeometry is an emerging scientific discipline at the interface between computational geometry, biochemistry and biophysics, statistics, and chemistry that brings together specialists in the above disciplines to develop new computational techniques and paradigms for representing, storing, searching, simulating, analyzing, and visualizing biological structures. BioGeometry brings together ideas from a wide range of areas of computer science and mathematics, including algorithms, geometry, topology, graphics, robotics, and databases to address on of the most fundamental biological problems, i.e., structure-function relationships for biological molecules.
Geometric methods should be an essential component of any attempt
to understand and simulate biological systems. Existing techniques in
computational structural biology and bioinformatics have been developed over
three decades and have their roots in methods first applied by computational
chemists to much smaller molecular systems. Although there have been
significant advancements in the field, a systematic solution of many of the
most important biological problems is still elusive, including ab initio
protein structure prediction, the protein folding process, and ligand to
protein docking. It is widely believed that the geometry of molecules plays a
crucial role in these processes, yet geometrical methods are relatively
uncommon in computational biology because several unresolved representational
and algorithmic issues remain.
The new PSB
session on BioGeometry will naturally complement traditional topics such as
protein folding, tools for visualization, computer-aided drug design,
cheminformatics addressed in the past. It will also serve to promote a
relatively new discipline of BioGeometry and thereby will uniquely enrich the
diversity of computational biology topics that are included as part of the PSB
Submission topics can include but are not limited to:
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protein
folding and docking
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applications
of graph theory to biological systems
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protein-ligand
recognition
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visualization
of biological structures
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computational
geometry method development
The Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing (PSB 2005) is an
international, multidisciplinary conference for the presentation and discussion
of current research in the theory and application of computational methods in
problems of biological significance. PSB 2005 will be held January 4-8,
2005 at the Fairmont Orchid on the Big Island of Hawaii. Tutorials will
be offered prior to the start of the conference.
PSB has been designed to be responsive to the need for
critical mass in sub-disciplines within biocomputing. For that reason, it
is the only meeting whose sessions are defined dynamically each year in
response to specific proposals. PSB sessions are targeted to provide a
forum for publication and discussion of research in biocomputingÕs Òhot topicsÓ.
In this way, PSB provides an early forum for serious examination of emerging
methods and approaches in a rapidly changing field. More information on
the conference can be obtained from the conference web page: http://psb.stanford.edu/.
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Submissions
are due July 16, 2004
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Decisions
are announced September 8, 2004
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Camera
ready copy due September 22, 2004
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Poster
abstracts due November 1, 2004
PSB will publish accepted full papers in an archival
proceedings volume indexed in MEDLINE. All submissions will be
peer-reviewed. A limited number of submissions will be selected for oral
presentation. Poster abstracts will be submitted separately from the
conference proceedings. All papers must be submitted to russ.altman@stanford.edu in electronic
format. The file formats we accept are: postscript (*.ps), adobe acrobat
(*.pdf), and Microsoft Word (*.doc). Attached files should be names 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:
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The
email address of the corresponding author
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The
specific PSB session that should review the paper or abstract
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The
submitted paper contains original, unpublished results, and is not currently
under consideration elsewhere.
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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 http://psb.stanford.edu/psb-online/psb-submit/.
If figures can not be easily resized and placed precisely in the text, then it
should be clear with appropriate modifications, the total manuscript length
would be within the page limit. Color pictures can be printed at the
expense of the author. The fee is $500 per page of color pictures, and is
payable at the time of camera-ready submission.
Alexander Tropsha Ð Professor, School of Pharmacy,
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599
Herbert Edelsbrunner - Arts and Sciences Professor of Computer
Science and Mathematics, Duke University, Computer Science Department, Box
90129, Durham, NC 27708
edels@cs.duke.edu