We welcome Mark, who is going to work on the DGEMap project. Mark is a CEO of http://www.gulfstream-software.com/ and received his PhD from the School of Informatics.
We welcome Jean, who is going to work on the Developmental Gene Expression Map project for the next couple of months. Jean previously worked at the MRC Human Genetics Unit.
Characterising gene expression patterns is a crucial part of understanding the molecular determinants of embryonic development and the role of genes in disease. However, gene expression studies in human embryos need to overcome a number of difficulties. These include the sourcing and maintenance of collections of human material suitable for gene expression studies, bridging the expertise in both biological and informatics areas, and amassing and making accessible data from multiple laboratories and studies.
The Edinburgh Mouse Atlas aims to capture in-situ gene expression patterns in a common spatial framework. In this study, we construct a grammar to define spatial regions by combinations of these patterns. Combinations are formed by applying operators to curated gene expression patterns from the atlas, thereby resembling gene interactions in a spatial context. The space of combinations is searched using an evolutionary algorithm with the objective of finding the best match to a given target pattern.
Date and time:
Wednesday, 9 July, 2008 - 15:30
Location:
BioInformatics Research and Development 2008, Vienna, Austria.
Efficiently executing large-scale, data-intensive workflows such as Montage must take into account the volume and pattern of communication. When orchestrating data-centric workflows, centralised servers common to standard workflow systems can become a bottleneck to performance. However, standards-based workflow systems that rely on centralisation, e.g., Web service based frameworks, have many other benefits such as a wide user base and sustained support.
Date and time:
Wednesday, 25 June, 2008 - 17:30
Location:
ACM/IEEE International Symposium on High-Performance and Distributed Computing
DGEMap is the first ever design study, funded by the European Commission under the Sixth Framework Programme, aiming to generate the tools and a framework for a research infrastructure dedicated to gene expression mapping in early human development.