Bioinformatics Challenge Day (2 Feb)

fyi,

Note limit of 30 participants.

Paul

 > Bioinformatics Challenge Day
 > Join us for a 1-day hackathon tackling problems in bioinformatics
 >
 > Who:
 >
 > Calling all statisticians/mathematicians, geneticists, programmers,
 > microbiologists, algorithms researchers, and hackers of all types.
 >
 > The Problem:
 >
 > A continuing revolution in DNA sequencing technology has given us
 > sequencer machines with significantly higher throughput and reduced costs
 > than the tools of just five years ago. These can sequence up to one
 > billion bases in a single day, revolutionizing how we study the natural
 > world and advancing our medical understanding. We can now use sequencing
 > to learn about complex microbial populations, or to look for trace signs
 > of a pathogen in a patient.
 >
 > Yet these new technologies also pose new challenges for the software
 > tools used to reconstruct and understand genetic information. They create
 > a data analysis bottleneck, whereby the increase in the volume of raw
 > sequences is threatening to overwhelm our data archives.
 >
 > The Event:
 >
 > The Bioinformatics Challenge Day focuses on both the challenges and
 > opportunities presented by advances in bioinformatics. During this
 > all-day hackathon-style event, participants will be presented with an
 > array of existing technologies used to assemble, align, visualize, and
 > otherwise analyze raw sequence data. They will build on this base of
 > open-source software to envision new approaches to data processing,
 > analysis, and visualization. Participants will focus on one or more
 > challenges, which may include:
 >
 > a.     Analyzing environmental samples for a location sampled on multiple
 > days.
 > b.     Developing a visualization tools to facilitate analysis of
 > metagenomic data with unknown numbers of genomes at varying
 > concentrations.
 > c.     Performing de novo assembly from clinical samples with an emphasis
 > on pathogen identification.
 > d.     Identifying signatures of genetic engineering in a mixed 
population
 >
 > This Challenge Day is organized by MIT Lincoln Laboratory, and sponsored
 > by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA). Challenge Day is also an
 > experiment in applying the one-day hackathon format to challenges in
 > bioinformatics.
 >
 > The Logistics:
 >
 > This event will be held on February 2, 2013 at the MIT Media Lab in
 > Cambridge, MA. Participation will be limited to 30 individuals, with
 > backgrounds from diverse fields and with various levels of experience
 > (from undergraduates to advanced professionals).  While Challenge Day is
 > free, registration and a simple application of one paragraph (or more,
 > but no more than one page) are required. In your application, please: 1)
 > describe your own technical background (need not include bioinformatics);
 > 2) describe your interest in bioinformatics; and 3) confirm that you will
 > be available for the full day of 2/2/13. Direct these and any questions
 > to Peter Carr (carr@ll.mit.edu) at MIT Lincoln Laboratory.
 >
 >
 > _______________________________________________
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.

Received on Thursday, 31 January 2013 14:41:24 UTC