Protocol

Fifth meeting of the German/Russian Virtual Network of Bioinformatics for “Computational Systems Biology”

October 9-10, 2006

Bielfeld, Germany

Written by : Alex Kochetov

List of participant that are present on 9-10 Oktober:

Prof.Dr.Hofestaedt(University Bielefeld)

Prof.Dr. Kolchanov (Novosibirsk State University)

Dr. Surkova (St-Petersburg Polytechnical University)

Anita Adamczyk ( Bielefeld University, Research Administration Office )

Dr. Thiele (BRUKER DALTONICS GmbH, Bremen)

Aljona Oprawchat ( University Bielefeld)

Dr. Kochetov (Novosibirsk State University)

Program

Meeting has been organized as a round table where the participants presented their opinions on the Network further development and current state. The main topics included the collaboration in education (and distant education) in the frame of Marie Curie FP7 Program, collaboration in research projects, Russia/EU bioinformatic platform in plant biotechnology, and cooperation with hightech companies (innovation projects).

Monday, October 9th 2006

09:30 Come together - Coffee

10:00 Anita Adamczyk ( Bielefeld University, Research Administration Office )

Marie Curie Networks in 7. EU-Framework Programms

11:00 Ralf Hofestädt ( Bielefeld University )

Nikolay Kolchanov ( Institute of Cytology and Genetics, Novosibirsk )

Activity reports

11:30 Future of the network ( open discussion )

12:00 Alexey Kochetov ( Institute of Cytology and Genetics, Novosibirsk )

WWW representation (draft) & Flyer (draft)

12:30 Lunch

14:00 EU Proposal I

Discussion of the 4 actual abstracts ( short presentations )

15:30 Coffee

16:00 EU final Proposal II

Fixing the topic and potential partners

19:00 Social event – Brauhaus dinner

Tuesday, October 10th 2006

9:00 Herbert Thiele (BRUKER DALTONICS)

Report on current activities and possible cooperations in computational proteomics

9:45 Distant Education

Fixing the topics for a proposal

10:30 Coffee

11:00 Joint project

Fixing the topic

12:30 Lunch

14:00 Bilateral cooperations and open discussion

Brief summary of the discussion.

1.  Education in bioinformatics and systems biology (including distant education & e-learning) is an important part of the Network activities. Previously the Network’s participants have agreed to organize the Distant Education Graduate School. During this Meeting the participants decided to prepare grant proposal for EU FP7 Marie Curie Program .

2.  Prof. Dr. Hofestaedt will present the Network proposals of bioinformatic platform for plant biotechnology (7th EU Framework Program «Plants for Future»).

3.  Potential cooperation with biotech companies was discussed. The participants agreed to continue this discussion in the format of a special meeting devoted to innovation projects with invited representatives of biotech companies (Discussion in December, Bielefeld)

4.  The next meeting of the Network will (preliminary) take place in St-Petersburg (Russia) November (Network event).

5.  Additional meeting will take place in Bielefeld (Germany), December (10 & 11.12.2006 )

Participants and brief summary of their talks and proposals

Prof. Kolchanov (ICG, Novosibirsk, Russia) proposed to continue step-by-step discussion on the distant education and concentrate attention on the courses for PHD-students. Probably, on the first stage of the process collaborating universities should agree which cources they may prepare (each partner might prepare one – three courses). He also described the current approaches for data extraction and processing developed in ICG.

Prof. Hofestädt (Bielefeld University, Germany) made a review of funding opportunities which may be used to support research projects and visits between Russian and German universities and research institutes. Probable fields of participation of the Network-associated institutes in the 7th EU Framework Program (Marie Curie & Cooperation grants) were discussed.

Dipl.-Inform. B.Prins (Bielefeld University, Germany) made a report on the database MILAN targeted on the data integration on metabolic disorders and inherited diseases.

Dr. S. Surkova(St-Peresburg Polytechnical University, Russia) made a brief comment on the next Network meeting in St-Petersburg.

Prof. Thiele (BRUKER Daltonics GmbH , Bremen, Germany) briefly introduced the facilities of some computational tools in proteomics (PIKE: protein information and knowledge extractor) and discussed current gaps in this field (an efficient database integration, easy analysis route from wet lab obtained data to bioinformatic resources to interpret the results and plan further experiments).

Dr. Kochetov (ICG, Novosibirsk, Russia) reported the current state of the Network www-site. Further improvements of site design and content were discussed.

Ms. Aljona Oprawchat (Bielefeld University, Germany) demonstrated the draft version of the Network flyer.

Ms. Anita Adamczyk (Bielefeld University, Research Administration Office) made a brief review of EU FP7 Marie Curie Program.

Resume.

1.  The participants compiled draft proposals for EU FP7 programs (Marie Curie and Cooperation parts; files are available (appendix A & B at the end of this documents)).

2.  Special agreement between the faculties of Bielefeld University and Novosibirsk State University (as a framework to establish further collaboration in education) will be discussed.