2010 Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Conference on Systems Biology: Global Regulati

系统生物学：全球基因表达调控会议 这项提案寻求美国国立卫生研究院的资金，以支持关于系统生物学方法的一系列科学会议中的第七次，以了解真核生物的基因调控。拟议的2010年会议将侧重于基因调控的五个关键方面--顺式调控逻辑、转录调控网络、核小体和表观遗传学、转录后调控以及调控网络的变异和进化。此外，还将举行一次会议，专门讨论基因调控分析的新兴技术。2012年和2014年的会议将采用类似的形式，并将包括与会议时的当前研究高度相关的议题。 细胞如何控制基因表达是生物学中的一个基本问题。自从基因和DNA的双链螺旋结构被发现以来，人们一直在不断地研究这个问题。已经有了许多伟大的发现，包括制造转录本的核机器以及用于控制基因表达的DNA序列。尽管有这些努力，我们对基因调控的分子机制的了解仍然很粗略。例如，尽管已有完整的基因组序列，但人类基因组中大多数基因的转录调控序列和调控蛋白仍然定义不清。现在，随着各种生物的基因组序列信息量迅速增长，这个问题变得更加紧迫。传统上，研究人员通过分析特定转录因子和/或控制单基因表达模式的顺式调控元件的DNA结合偏好来研究基因调控。这些研究已经初步确定了大约100个转录因子的DNA序列基序，并导致了基因组水平的转录调控涉及到模块DNA序列元件之间的复杂相互作用，如增强子、沉默因子、绝缘子和基本启动子元件。在过去的几年里，在分析基因表达的每一步的新的基因组学方法的开发方面取得了快速的进展。这些方法中的许多在其设计或解释中都涉及计算部分。其他策略是从几个完整基因组序列的可获得性和未来更多基因组序列的前景演变而来的。这些措施包括分析密切相关物种之间的序列保守，以检测非编码区的系统发育足迹，以及使用基因组微阵列和下一代测序技术来研究DNA-蛋白质和RNA-蛋白质的相互作用。这些新方法的结果为原核细胞和真核细胞的基因调控过程提供了前所未有的细节。 显然，要解决基因调控这一复杂问题，实验生物学家和计算生物学家之间的有效合作是必要的。因此，我们建议召开一次会议，以便能够自由地跨学科交流现有的想法和专门知识。希望这次会议将为建立新的合作提供一个机制，并为讨论新的实验和计算方法提供一个论坛。会议将于2010年3月23-27日在冷泉港实验室举行。已邀请22位国际知名演讲者作口头陈述，另有约45位发言者将从申请者提交的会议摘要中选出。除了主旨演讲外，口头陈述的长度为15？，其中5？用于提问和讨论。将包括海报会议，以鼓励未发言的与会者有意义地参与。此外，我们将举办会议前研讨会，让分子生物学家和生物信息学家熟悉相互理解学科所需的关键概念、术语和缩略语。我们预计将有大约250-300名科学家出席会议。我们特别鼓励女性科学家和初级调查人员参加[两位主旨演讲人中的一位，其余受邀演讲者中的25%，以及四位会议组织者中的两位是女性，前几年的大多数参与者都是独立生涯早期的学生、博士后或调查人员。

Systems Biology: Global Regulation of Gene Expression Conference This proposal seeks NIH funding to support the seventh in a series of scientific meetings on systems biology approaches to understanding gene regulation in eukaryotes. The proposed 2010 meeting will focus on five key aspects of gene regulation¿cis-regulatory logic, transcriptional regulatory networks, nucleosomes and epigenetics, post-transcriptional regulation, and variation and evolution of regulatory networks. In addition, a session will be devoted to emerging technologies for analysis of gene regulation. The 2012 and 2014 meetings will follow a similar format and will include topics highly relevant to the current research at the time of the meeting. How cells control gene expression is a fundamental problem in biology. Ever since the discovery of the genes and the double strand helix structure of the DNA, there have been continuous investigations into this problem. Many great discoveries have been made, including the nuclear machineries that make transcripts as well as the DNA sequences that serve to control gene expression. Despite these efforts, our knowledge of the molecular mechanisms of gene regulation remains sketchy. For example, the transcriptional regulatory sequences and the regulatory proteins for most genes in the human genome are still poorly defined, despite the availability of the complete genome sequences. Now, with the amount of genome sequence information for various organisms rapidly growing, the problem has become ever more pressing. Traditionally, investigators have studied gene regulation by analyzing the DNA-binding preferences of specific transcription factors and/or the cis-regulatory elements that control the expression patterns of single genes. These studies have tentatively identified DNA sequence motifs for around one hundred transcription factors, and have led to the idea that transcriptional regulation at the genome level involves a complex interplay between modular DNA sequence elements such as enhancers, silencers, insulators, and basal promoter elements. The last several years have seen rapid advances in the development of new genomics approaches to analysis of each step of the gene expression. Many of these approaches involve a computational component in their design or interpretation. Other strategies have evolved from the availability of several complete genomic sequences and the prospects of many more to come. These include analyses of sequence conservation among closely related species to detect ¿phylogenetic footprints¿ in non-coding regions and the use of genomic microarrays and next-generation sequencing technologies to study DNA-protein and RNA-protein interactions. The results from these new approaches have provided unprecedented details on the gene regulatory processes in prokaryotic as well as eukaryotic cells. It is clear that effective collaborations between experimental and computational biologists will be required to come to grips with the complex problem of gene regulation. Thus we propose to conduct a meeting to permit a free cross-disciplinary exchange of existing ideas and expertise. It is hoped that this meeting will provide a mechanism for the establishment of new collaborations, and a forum for discussing new experimental and computational approaches. The meeting will be held at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on March 23-27, 2010. Twenty-two speakers of international renown have been invited to give oral presentations, and approximately forty-five others will be selected from submitted abstracts from applicants to the meeting. With the exception of the keynote address, oral presentations will be 15¿ in length with 5¿ for questions and discussions. Poster sessions will be included to encourage meaningful participation by the non-speaking attendees. In addition, we will hold pre-meeting workshops which will familiarize molecular biologists and bioinformaticians with the key concepts, terminology and acronyms needed to understand each others¿ disciplines. We expect attendance of approximately 250-300 scientists at the meeting. We particularly encourage female scientists and junior investigators to participate ¿ one of the two keynote speakers, 25% of the remaining invited speakers, and two of the four meeting organizers are women, and the majority of the participants in previous years have been students, postdocs or investigators in their early independent career.