Symposia, Seminars and Special Events:
Archive 2008

• June 20, 2008 BICB Research Symposium
• January 18, 2008 BICB Research Symposium

June 20, 2008 - BICB Research Symposium

Date: Friday, June 20, 2008
Time: 10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Place: University of Minnesota Rochester, Rochester, MN

The purpose of this event was to:

• Broaden areas of BICB research interest
• Recap 2008-09 Call for Proposals and Nominations (Funded by University of Minnesota Rochester) for the following programs:
  • Seed Grants
  • Traineeships
  • Post-Doctorial Associate Research Fellowships
• Report on progress of 2007-08 BICB seed grants and trainee projects (poster displays)
• Facilitate 2007-08 seed grant team dialog (i.e., “face-to-face” project discussions)
• Provide an opportunity for researchers and faculty to meet, communicate interests, and exchange ideas that could lead to collaborative research projects

This symposium brought together teams of scientists and administrators from the University of Minnesota Twin Cities (UMTC), University of Minnesota Rochester (UMR), Hormel Institute, Mayo Clinic, and IBM, as well as other researchers working in biomedical informatics and computational biology.  The symposium focused on collaborative, interdisciplinary biomedical research in the areas of:

• Medical Imaging Informatics
• Bioinformatics
• Computational Biology
• Computational Approaches to Genomics and Proteomics
• Integration of Data Types with Genomic Emphasis

The morning session covered a brief status of the BICB Program followed by a keynote presentation on the IBM/Mayo Clinic collaborative research facility, Medical Imaging Informatics Innovation Center (MI3C), that was announced in January 2008.  This talk was followed by UMR’s announcement of its competitive resource award programs for the 2008-09 academic year.  Over lunch, participants were given the opportunity to review poster displays provided by the 2007-08 seed grant teams and trainees.

The afternoon breakout sessions brought together faculty and researchers from the University of Minnesota, Mayo Clinic, IBM, and Hormel Institute to meet and share scientific interests that could lead to collaborative research projects.  In addition, the current BICB seed grant teams were given the opportunity to meet with their team to discuss their projects and application for renewal of funding.

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January 18, 2008 - BICB Research Symposium

Date: January 18, 2008
Time: 9:30 a.m. – 5:30 p.m.
Place: University of Minnesota Rochester, Rochester, MN

A research symposium in biomedical informatics and computational biology was held on January 18, 2008 to facilitate collaborations in the areas of:

1. Data mining methods for clinical and laboratory data, and
2. Computational methods for rational drug design.

This symposium brought together teams of scientists and administrators from the University of Minnesota Twin Cities (UMTC), University of Minnesota Rochester (UMR), Hormel Institute, Mayo Clinic, and IBM. The symposium was held in Rochester at UMR and the first part of the symposium was open to the broader scientific community.  The symposium also provided an opportunity for the current BICB graduate trainees and their advisors to interact with the seed grant awardees to discuss potential future collaborations. This was intended to further strengthen and solidify the research connections between the participating institutions.  The BICB Research Symposium was widely announced to attract researchers outside of the participant group, to identify additional collaborators, and to publicize the BICB efforts at UMR.  In particular, BICB graduate trainees and their advisors were invited to participate.  More than 80 researchers from the collaborating institutions attended the symposium.  

Symposium Details

The symposium had two parts:  The first part of the symposium was open to a larger group to publicize the activities in Rochester with the aim to broaden the research base. It featured speakers from each of the five BICB Seed Grant Teams who gave research talks followed by discussion on the work that is funded by the UMR Seed Grant Program.

The second part of the symposium was only open to the symposium organizers, the participating Seed Grant Team members, and guests of the Seed Grant Teams. During this second part, the teams discussed their research and work towards the establishment of a common vision that will be developed into research proposals for extramural funding during the ensuing months.

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