Support is requested for the multidisciplinary conference MODELING OF PROTEIN INTERACTIONS IN GENOMES 2005, to be held on 24-27 June, 2005 in Lawrence, Kansas. The meeting will involve a combination of biological, physical, and computational scientists, and will focus on computational procedures for reconstruction and study of the networks of connections between proteins in genomes, including experimental studies, knowledge-based methods, sequence analysis, and structural approaches.
The specific aims of the Modeling of Protein Interactions in Genomes Conference 2005 are as follows: (1) discussion of the structural aspects of protein interactions, including docking methods; (2) discussion of current and emerging methods of determining protein binding sites using both sequence-based and structure-based approaches; (3) modeling of protein-protein interactions on the basis of a diverse set of experimental techniques (e.g., mass spectroscopy, cryo-electron microscopy, cross-linking, NMR, etc); and (4) solving computational problems associated with the analysis of protein interaction networks from large-scale screening experiments (primarily two-hybrid essays and mass spectrometry). Experts from various areas of protein interactions were selected to serve on our Advisory Committee and also to present at the conference. Further presentations will be invited as well as selected by the Advisory Committee from the submitted abstracts. A poster session will be held on one of the conference days. The conference will be relatively small - approximately 100 participants. The organizers will pay special attention to attracting young investigators as speakers and poster presenters. We will encourage participation of students and postdoctoral fellows. An important aspect of the conference organization will be our effort to diversify the participation by attracting women and minority scientists. This will primarily achieved by contacting faculty members working in the areas of Biophysics and Biochemistry in minority-serving institutions.
