M-EID Events and Announcements

M-EID NEW Small Grants Program

Guidelines for M-EID's new Small Grants Program are now available at M-EID Web Site. Trainees may apply for grants of up to $2,500, and proposals may be submitted at any time.

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Departmental Events

IMB Seminar

Catherine Royer - Centre de Biochimie Structurale - "Probing the role of hydration in protein folding using pressure perturbation techniques"

OBE Seminar

Jerry Jacobs - Neuroscience Research Institute - UC Santa Barbara - “Genes, photo pigments and the evolution of primate color vision”

Math Colloquium - Knowledge Assisted Data Management and Retrieval in Multimedia Database Systems - Min Chen

The proliferation of multimedia data (e.g., graphics, images, animation, video, audio, text, etc.) and ever-increasing demand for multimedia applications signify the pertinent need for efficient and effective multimedia data indexing, storage and retrieval mechanisms. Due to the special characteristics of multimedia data, the Multimedia Database Management Systems (MMDBMSs) have emerged and attracted immense research attention in recent years.

Though many research efforts have been devoted to this area, it is still far from maturity and numerous open issues need to be addressed. In this talk, a systematic and integrated framework is presented, with the focus on two essential challenges in developing the MMDBMS, i.e., semantic gap and data organization. The techniques and methodologies developed for this framework can be applied to many practical application domains. In this talk, video event/concept mining is used as an example to demonstrate the potential of this framework.

Rocky Mountain Lab ( RML ) Activities

RML Speakers

Best - Flavivirus evasion of interferon responses; McNally - Infection of cells expressing full length vs anchorless PrP Julie Akana - Wendy Fibison.

Speakers: Sandy Stewart & Julie Boylan

Title: LZP WIP. Speakers: Sandy Stewart & Julie Boylan

Are all Isoforms of PrPSC infections?

Guest Speaker - Dr. Rona Barron, Roslin Institute and Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies/Dr. Chesebro.

Upcoming Conferences -

SIAM Conference on the Life Sciences

The life sciences have become increasingly quantitative as new technologies facilitate collection and analysis of vast amounts of data ranging from complete genomic sequences of organisms to satellite imagery of forest landscapes on continental scales. As a consequence, mathematics and computational science have become crucial technologies for the study of complex models of biological processes.

The SIAM Activity Group on Life Sciences brings together researchers who seek to develop and apply mathematical and computational methods in all areas of the life sciences. This conference of the activity group will provide a cross-disciplinary forum for catalyzing mathematical research relevant to the life sciences. It will facilitate rapid diffusion of new mathematical and computational methods in the life sciences, and may stimulate more researchers to work in these important areas. Mathematicians, life scientists, computational biologists, bioengineers and others interested in mathematical and computational analysis of biological systems are encouraged to attend.

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Society for Mathematical Biology Conference

Hosted by the Centre for Mathematical Medicine (CMM). This is one of the premier conferences on mathematics in biology and the biomedical sciences. This conference will integrate into the activities of the Fields Thematic Program on Mathematical and Quantitative Oncology with Cancer being one of the major themes of the conference. The themes for the meeting will include:

• Immunology
• Epidememiology
• Cancer Modeling
• Cancer Therapies
• Systems Biology
• Ecology
• Developmental Biology
• Cell Biology
• Environmental and Evolutionary Biology
• Imaging
• Neuroscience
• Physiology
• Genomics
• Undergraduate Education

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New Courses

Fundamentals and Applications of Mass Spectrometry - BIOC 595-03 - CRN 35297

After taking this course the student should have a basic understanding of instrumentation used in mass spectrometry, the interpretation of mass spectral data, practical applications of mass spectrometry and the role of mass spectrometry as an analytical research tool, emphasizing the role of mass spectrometry in biochemical research. The student should also gain the ability to research current literature to find appropriate mass spectral techniques to solve research questions, and be able to implement those techniques using available

The Structural Basis of Amyloid Diseases - BIOC 595-02 - CRN 35295

This is a literature-based course that will examine the biophysics of amyloid diseases, with particular emphasis on the prion protein. Students will take turns presenting papers for discussion.

Computational Biology - BIOL 395

Extraordinary advances in scientific computation and data acquisition are enriching and transforming numerous areas of biology. Powerful mathematical tools and techniques are increasingly needed for analysis of scientific data and development of biological models.

This course will cover fundamental concepts and applications in key areas of the emerging fields of computational biology, including bioinformatics, protein folding, comparative genomics, systems biology and dynamical modeling of ecosystems and disease. The course will include a lab for creating programs with the R scripting language, an open-source tool for statistical computing and graphics.

Because this is an interdisciplinary course that integrates material from biology, computer science and mathematics, students from all of these backgrounds are strongly encouraged to apply. Varying degrees of prior experience will be accommodated with coverage of fundamental concepts in each of these areas to facilitate success in the course for students with various backgrounds.