Imagine sitting at the beach somewhere on the Brazilian northeast coast, listening to Janet Thornton talking about the role of bioinformatics in medicine and agriculture. Well, in reality, this probably happened in a conference room, but it did happen in Fortaleza, Brazil at the 2006 edition of ISMB. A conference that for some strange reason, I have never attended.
ISMB included a New Frontiers session at this years meeting and Bioinform has a recap of the events. The speakers included the aforementioned Janet Thornton, Chris Sander, Amos Bairoch, Phil Bourne and Søren Brunak. While a number of subjects were discussed at the event, I was somewhat surprised by the lack of anything substantially new. I got the impression that the field is at a crossroads. I am biased as well, but it is indeed time that experimental biology and computational biology became inextricably linked, a topic covered by many of the speakers. Bairoch gets credit for the boldest move, suggesting that all grant proposals for large-scale experimental projects include a portion for data storage and management. Any such requirement, once again, cries out for the need to standardize data.
It’s interesting that the report from Bioinform writes that Brunak “proposed the somewhat controversial idea that the field of computational biology may not even exist in 15 years as computation becomes an essential tool in the field”. I have heard that before from multiple sources, and I don’t completely agree with that statement either. While the meaning of computational biology might change, I doubt that every biologist in 15 years will be an expert in algorithms and bayesian statistics. What is more likely is the utilization and understanding of computational tools will become ubuquitous among biologists. Some scientists will use computers for all their research, just like there are some who become experts at a specific instrument or technique. Computation will just become another tool, consistent with the demise of the “computational biologist”. That word will likely be reserved for those who devote their energies to developing new methods that others can apply, or so I think, a direction that Brunak alluded to as well.
Phil Bourne touched upon a subject that I find fascinating. Information exchange, specifically scientific publishing. While I don’t like design and usability of the current RCSB site that much, Bourne and colleagues have made a great attempt to integrate all kinds of data with the core structural data that is deposited there. They have also given advanced users access to a number of other features, both trends that I hope become more prevalent. Ideally different data sources would be integrated via semantic technologies. I have known about Microsoft’s efforts for a while, but I hope that the metadata standards being developed are consistent with others being used and developed.
Technorati Tags: ISMB, Bioinformatics, Fortaleza, Conference, Janet Thornton, Chris Sander, Amos Bairoch, Phil Bourne, Søren Brunak
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Sun, Sand … and Bioinformatics
Imagine sitting at the beach somewhere on the Brazilian northeast coast, listening to Janet Thornton talking about the role of bioinformatics in medicine and agriculture. Well, in reality, this probably happened in a conference room, but it did happen in Fortaleza, Brazil at the 2006 edition of ISMB. A conference that for some strange reason, I have never attended.
ISMB included a New Frontiers session at this years meeting and Bioinform has a recap of the events. The speakers included the aforementioned Janet Thornton, Chris Sander, Amos Bairoch, Phil Bourne and Søren Brunak. While a number of subjects were discussed at the event, I was somewhat surprised by the lack of anything substantially new. I got the impression that the field is at a crossroads. I am biased as well, but it is indeed time that experimental biology and computational biology became inextricably linked, a topic covered by many of the speakers. Bairoch gets credit for the boldest move, suggesting that all grant proposals for large-scale experimental projects include a portion for data storage and management. Any such requirement, once again, cries out for the need to standardize data.
It’s interesting that the report from Bioinform writes that Brunak “proposed the somewhat controversial idea that the field of computational biology may not even exist in 15 years as computation becomes an essential tool in the field”. I have heard that before from multiple sources, and I don’t completely agree with that statement either. While the meaning of computational biology might change, I doubt that every biologist in 15 years will be an expert in algorithms and bayesian statistics. What is more likely is the utilization and understanding of computational tools will become ubuquitous among biologists. Some scientists will use computers for all their research, just like there are some who become experts at a specific instrument or technique. Computation will just become another tool, consistent with the demise of the “computational biologist”. That word will likely be reserved for those who devote their energies to developing new methods that others can apply, or so I think, a direction that Brunak alluded to as well.
Phil Bourne touched upon a subject that I find fascinating. Information exchange, specifically scientific publishing. While I don’t like design and usability of the current RCSB site that much, Bourne and colleagues have made a great attempt to integrate all kinds of data with the core structural data that is deposited there. They have also given advanced users access to a number of other features, both trends that I hope become more prevalent. Ideally different data sources would be integrated via semantic technologies. I have known about Microsoft’s efforts for a while, but I hope that the metadata standards being developed are consistent with others being used and developed.
Technorati Tags: ISMB, Bioinformatics, Fortaleza, Conference, Janet Thornton, Chris Sander, Amos Bairoch, Phil Bourne, Søren Brunak
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