ADVANCED INTRODUCTION TO GENOMICAL BIOLOGY

Epigenomics Project, Genopole®, CNRS & Univ. Évry (near Paris), France

To facilitate research at the common borders, an Advanced Introduction aims at fostering a better understanding of the expectations, constraints, approaches and mode of thinking of a scientific partner across disciplines. Within a week, an AI brings participant scientists belonging to a modelling community from a null/medium level to some understanding of the research frontiers in the target discipline, here the biological sciences. To reach this goal, seasoned lecturers present the key objects and concepts of the target domain, explain the current research questions and methods, and give a feel for what would be considered a (good) result. All the important and recent subdisciplines of biology will be covered.

NEW this year: Synthetic Biology.

Important dates

• August 31th, 2007: Registration deadline.
• September 10th, 2007: Acceptance notification.
• September 30th, 2007: Registration fee payment deadline.
• October 15th, 2007: Advanced Introduction start.

Lecturers

• Frédéric Dardel, LCRB, Faculté de Pharmacie (Paris)
• Hervé Delacroix, Centre de Génétique Moléculaire, (Gif)
• Marie Dutreix, Institut Curie (Orsay)
• Alfonso Jaramillo, École Polytechnique (Palaiseau)
• François Képès, Epigenomics Project, Genopole® (Evry)
• Ivan Matic, Faculté de Médecine Necker (Paris)
• Nadine Peyrieras, Biologie Moléculaire du développement (Gif)
• Francis Quétier, Genoscope (Evry)
• Alain Rambourg, Laboratoire de dynamique cellulaire, CEA (Saclay)
• Flavio Toma, Structure et reconnaissance des biomolécules (Evry)
• Éric Westhof, Université Louis Pasteur, IBMC (Strasbourg)

Scientific coordinator

• Dr. François Képès (Epigenomics Project, Genopole®, CNRS, Univ. Évry, France)

Participation

This School will be open to participants from all over Europe. We expect 30 participants, following a selection process led by the Coordinator. The selection criteria are that participants must be active research scientists, typically mathematicians, physicists, chemists and computer scientists. Biologists may benefit from such a School, but to a lesser extent than scientists from other disciplines, and they are consequently not accepted, in order to keep efficiency at its peak. The other selective criteria aim at balancing participation to have a high representation of doctoral students and postdoctoral fellows. However, experienced principal investigators have also participated in all past sessions since 2003.

Location

Conference room #7 of the Epigenomics Project; Tower Évry2, 10th floor, 523 Terrasses de l'Agora, 91000 Évry, France (near Paris). Metro/RER station 'Évry-Courcouronnes' is 5 min away on foot. Further information about accomodation and transportation will be provided at a later stage.

Registration

The registration fee is 200 € and covers participation to the Advanced Introduction, pedagogic material (a thick book of lecture slides and a textbook of genomical bioinformatics), lunch and two coffee breaks daily. Upon request, for doctoral and postdoctoral fellows coming from a non-French institution, we subsidize the accomodation costs up to 185 € per person through hotel prepayment (in the limit of 10 registrants on a first come - first serve basis). This is equivalent to five nights, from Sunday to Friday, at the nearby Etap Hotel.
http://www.accorhotels.com/accorhotels/fichehotel/gb/etp/2506/fiche_hotel.shtml

To register, please send an e-mail with subject "Advanced Introduction" to Mrs. Sylvie BOBELET and include the following mandatory information:

• CV (1 page or under)
• letter of motivation including a formal commitment to attend all sessions (about half a page)
• precise postal information
• for doctoral or postdoctoral fellows coming from a non-French institution, indicate whether you apply for accomodation subsidies and whether you wish to use them towards paying the Evry Etap Hotel.

Programme and structure

The format is a five-day session including about 30 hours of teaching spread over ten subdisciplines and about as many lecturers. One typical day comprises 6 hours of Advanced Introduction (4 lectures), plus an illustrative and stimulating one-hour conference (eyeopener), and a half-hour forum for open discussions on how some participants might usefully invest themselves into the target domain. Pauses after each lecture allow to renew the attention of the audience. Given the steep learning slope, a regular attendance is required.

A thick book with all the presentation slides and a textbook of genomical bioinformatics are provided to each participant at the start of the session. A CD-ROM containing the slides of all the presentations will subsequently be made available to anyone who requests it. Assessment questionnaires are collected at the end of the session, and exploited for future improvements.

Detailed programme can be found here.