Call for Papers and Participation
Session on Computational Approaches for Pharmacogenomics
Pharmacogenomics is a fascinating, emerging area of biomedical research. This area is defined as the intersection between pharmacology and genetics. There is evidence that an individuals' response to drug treatment can be explained, in part, by their genetic variation in certain areas of the genome. Pharmacogenomics holds the promise for individualized medicine, where drugs might one day be tailor-made for individuals and adapted to each person's own genetic makeup. Environmental factors including diet, age, and lifestyle can influence a person's response to medicines, but understanding an individual's genetic makeup is thought to be the key to creating personalized drugs with greater efficacy and safety.
Pharmacogenomics combines traditional pharmaceutical sciences such as biochemistry with annotated knowledge of genes, proteins, and single nucleotide polymorphisms. With the sequencing of the human genome near completion, the ability to obtain information about an individual's entire genome is upon us. This will allow for the detection of genetic variations associated with drug response and adverse outcomes on a full genomic scale. Technology has advanced greatly in the area of experimental procedures used to explore pharmacogenomics questions. The major challenges now are developing the statistical and computational capacity to store, manage, analyze and interpret the wealth of data being generated.
This session is designed to explore the current state-of-the-art research taking place in bioinformatics, biostatistics, and computational genetics to develop tools for the handling of all the pharmacogenomics data being generated. The goal of this session is the presentation and discussion of new research, algorithms, and methods for the management and analysis of pharmacogenomics data. We intend for this session to bring together scientists from pharmacology, genetics, statistics, and computational biology/bioinformatics to share their efforts in pharmacogenomics.
Submission topics can include but are not limited to:
- Methods for association analysis to detect genetic association with drug response phenotypes
- Tools for representing drug pathway information and using this information to guide association analysis
- Methods for detecting gene-environment associations
with drug response phenotypes
The Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing (PSB 2006) 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 2006 will be held January 3-7, 2006 at the Grand Wailea, Wailea, Maui. 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 biocomputing’s “hot topics”. 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/.
- Submissions are due July 18, 2005
- Decisions are announced September 6, 2005
- Camera ready copy due September 23, 2005
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:
- 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 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.
Marylyn D Ritchie Ph.D. Assistant Professor of Molecular Physiology & Biophysics, Center for Human Genetics, Vanderbilt University
ritchie@chgr.mc.vanderbilt.edu
Michelle W Carrillo Ph.D. Head Scientific Curator PharmGKB, Stanford University
Russell Wilke MD, Ph.D. Head of Pharmacogenetics, Marshfield Clinic Research Foundation
wilke.russell@mcrf.mfldclin.edu