GTReal Workshop: Real-Time Methods in Electrophysiology

描述(由申请者提供)：第二届GTReal年度研讨会将于2006年5月或6月在波士顿大学校园举行。这次会议将有大约120名具有不同经验的科学家参加(学生、博士后研究员、教职员工)。会议将包括3位受邀的演讲者，12-15个贡献的演讲，以及2-4个“分组”会议，与会者将讨论共同感兴趣的话题。还将有亲身实践教程。根据投稿的数量，也可能会有海报。继2005年5月在佐治亚理工学院举办的第一次活动取得成功之后，GTReal将重点讨论以下主题：(1)交流科学成果。由于涉及的技术障碍，只有少数研究人员使用实时“动态钳制”系统来模拟可兴奋细胞的膜电导。这些研究人员之所以遇到这种程度的麻烦，是因为动态钳位技术提供了在生命系统中测试特定的、基于计算的假说的最佳方法。受邀和投稿的演讲将集中于在神经生理学和其他学科中动态钳夹和其他实时应用的令人兴奋的例子，以及用于获得这些结果的技术手段。(2)打造开发商和终端用户社区。在动态夹具的开创性工作十多年后，还没有出现交钥匙系统，但有几个小组设计出了看起来很有前途的系统。分组会议的一个主要目标将是根据开放源码软件开发的原则，继续建立一个实时技术开发人员和最终用户的社区。GTReal的参与者将构成这个社区的大部分核心。教程和非正式互动将增加熟练用户和开发人员的数量。(3)将实时方法推广到新型实验。实时技术使生物实验中的定量假设检验达到了前所未有的程度。该技术的一些扩展将极大地增加其影响。例如，在细胞神经生理学中，应该可以将实时技术和光学技术结合起来进行记录和刺激。实时技术也有可能给感觉系统的生理学和行为研究带来革命性的变化。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The 2nd annual GTReal workshop will be held in May or June 2006 at the campus of Boston University. The meeting will be attended by around 120 scientists at a range of levels of experience (students, postdoctoral fellows, faculty members). The meeting will include 3 invited speakers, 12-15 contributed talks, and 2-4 "breakout" sessions, in which attendees will discuss topics of mutual interest. There will also be a hands-on tutorials. Depending on the number of submissions, there may be posters as well. Following on the success of the first event, held in May 2005 at the Georgia Tech, GTReal will focus on the following topics: (1) Exchanging scientific results. Because of the technical hurdles involved, only a handful of investigators are using real-time "dynamic clamp" systems to mimic membrane conductances in excitable cells. These investigators have gone to this level of trouble because dynamic clamp techniques provide the best method to test specific, computationally based hypotheses in living systems. Invited and contributed talks will focus on exciting examples of dynamic clamp and other real-time applications in neurophysiology and other disciplines, as well as technical means used to obtain such results. (2) Building a community of developers and end-users. Over a decade after the seminal work on dynamic clamp, no turn-key system exists, but several groups have devised systems that seem promising. A major goal of the breakout sessions will be to continue to build a community of developers and end-users of real-time technology, based on the principles of open-source software development. The attendees of GTReal will constitute much of the core of this community. Tutorials and informal interactions will add to the cadre of skilled users and developers. (3) Extending the real-time approach to new types of experiments. Real-time techniques allow an unprecedented degree of quantitative hypothesis testing in biological experiments. A number of extensions of the technique would increase its impact dramatically. For example, within cellular neurophysiology, it should be possible to combine real-time technology and optical techniques for recording and stimulation. Real-time techniques also have the potential to revolutionize systems physiology and behavioral studies of sensory systems.