Call for Papers

Reverse Engineering and Synthesis of Biomolecular Systems A Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing 2010 session January 4-8, 2010, Fairmont Orchid, The Big Island of Hawaii
Session Chairs Gil Alterovitz Harvard/MIT Silvio Cavalcanti University of Bologna, Italy May Wang Georgia Institute of Technology Marco F. Ramoni Harvard/MIT Paper deadline July 18, 2009 Acceptance notification September 10, 2009 PSB Session and Tutorials January 4-8, 2010 Questions? psb-bnas@mit.edu	Session Topics The ability to design cellular systems for specific functions and applications is revolutionizing molecular biology via the new area of synthetic biology- which focuses on design rather than analysis.  Biologists and engineers are designing complex, predictable, and reliable biomolecular components to create living devices that function as molecular factories. One challenging area involves the synthesis of biomolecular systems, which necessitates the understanding, design, and implementation of such systems.  This session seeks to address reverse engineering and synthesis of biomolecular systems.  This can be done by perturbing parts in an existing system or by designing and testing a new system in a manner that examines the interplay between the individual components.  The results of such biomolecular systems can be very different from designing the individual components separately. There have been numerous recent advancements in the reverse engineering and synthesis of biomolecular systems within academia as well as the corporate world. At the same time, the field still must overcome several challenges. Some of the challenges in the synthesis of biological systems design include: standardization, stochasticity, directed evolution implementation, system interfaces, and kinetics.  This session aims to introduce novel engineering and other mathematical / computational methods that are successfully translated to yield significant biological and medical applications. Another goal is to promote communication and collaboration of scientists from different arenas through this session. Some of the objectives in the proposed special issue include: 1. Create a new paradigm whereby biocomputing researchers can take more active, leading role in the reverse engineering and synthesis of biomolecular systems. 2. Emphasize the guiding role that computational methods should play in the synthesis of biomolecular systems. 3. Promote communication and collaboration by scientists from other areas, especially from mathematics, physics, biological, medical, and communications communities. 4. Apply novel findings from information theory and applied mathematics (e.g. game theory) from the last couple of years to the reverse engineering and synthesis of biological systems. 5. Incorporate integrative tutorial materials that are not likely to appear in journal issues within a given field. Paper Submission Considering the popularity of biological network analysis, this PSB session was developed to have a special focus on the reverse engineering and synthesis of biomolecular systems in order to encourage the research in this new area. Both the biocomputing and biological community could benefit from exchanges of ideas and this could open up new research venues. This call for papers seeks original, high quality manuscripts which are not submitted or published elsewhere. Please see guidelines below for details on paper format and submission details. Please see the PSB paper format template and instructions at http://psb.stanford.edu/psb-online/psb-submit. The file formats we accept are: postscript (*.ps) and Adobe Acrobat (*.pdf). Attached files should be named with the last name of the first author (e.g. altman.ps, altman.pdf, or altman.ps). 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 that with appropriate modifications, the total manuscript length would be within the page limit. Contact Russ Altman (psb.hawaii @ gmail.com) for additional information about paper submission requirements. All deadlines are at midnight Pacific Standard Time. For the updated news/information, please click here.