22/12/2015

The Institute for Catalan Studies dedicates a journey to Bioinformatics

News from DCEXS website

The great bioscientific challenge of today is to manage and operate flexibly the deluge of scientific data which are currently available. Likewise, computational biology is the branch of life sciences research that focuses precisely in the application of IT tools in order to make sense of this huge amount of information grows exponentially.

Within the global trend of growth in this field of biosciences, Catalonia, thanks to the creation of powerful technological platforms and networks that interrelate research teams that work on it, has been at the forefront of bioinformatics and computational biology. In this context, and with more than one hundred and fifty subscribed researchers, the Institute for Catalan Studies celebrated on Friday, 18 December, the third edition of the Bioinformatics and Computational Biology Symposium, organized by the Catalan Society for Biology (SCB) and the Bioinformatics Barcelona Association (BIB). During the meeting, the research professionals enjoyed four plenary sessions addressing different aspects of bioinformatics in Catalonia, from major projects and initiatives that are being carried out to the interdisciplinary challenges associated with this research field.

Uttered by Arcadi Navarro, director of the Department of Experimental and Health Sciences (DCEXS) and ICREA research professor; David Carrera, researcher at the National Supercomputing Center (BSC); Tim Hubbard, head of the Department of Medical and Molecular Genetics of the London King's College, and Modesto Orozco, group leader of the Molecular Modelling and Bioinformatics Institute of Biomedical Research (IRB), the conferences has been followed by thirteen oral presentations by students and postdoctoral researchers. Antoni Espinosa, associate professor at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), and Gonzalo Vera, researcher at the Center for Research in Agricultural Genomics (CRAG), concluded the event making a valoration of the state of the Galaxy Project. Finally, and to close the journey, the JdB2015 award was given to the best oral exhibition among all presented during the day.

Sponsored by the Atos company, the Bioinformatics and Computational Biology Symposium of this 2015 has been designed by a committee made up by David Torrents (ICREA, BSC), Roderic Guigó (CRG-UPF), Ana Ripoll (UAB, BIB) and Ferran Sanz (GRIB, IMIM-UPF, BIB).  For the third year, the Catalan Society of Biology and Bioinformatics Barcelona Association join forces to offer the researchers a meeting point for the discussion and presentation of the results of a research that is expected to have a long and fruitful life.