Symposium on Publishing Clinical Trials
What: A one-day symposium jointly organized by the Institute of Clinical Research and the European Medical Writers`Association.
Theme: Publishing Clinical Trials: Ethics and the Pharmaceutical Industry.
When and where: 27 February 2008, Novotel Hammersmith, 1 Hammersmith International Centre, London.
“This symposium will be presented by a panel of experts including medical writers, journal editors, academics and pharmaceutical industry managers. Topics will include publication policy, ghostwriting, fraud and other ethical issues of publishing clinical trials.”
Details and registration at www. icr-global.org
Symposium on antiviral applications of RNAi
The European Science Foundation (ESF) and the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) are organizing a symposium on “Antiviral Applications of RNA Interference” on 5 to 10 April 2008.
The symposium will take place in Sant Feliu de Guixols, Spain, located 120 km north of Barcelona.
RNA interference (RNAi) is a promising new technology with a great potential for use as an antiviral tool. The approach allows specific inhibition of gene expression either through the degradation of specific RNA molecules or hindering of transcription of certain genes. The first clinical trials to evaluate the efficacy and safety RNAi technologies have recently been started.
The symposium will mainly focus on human pathogenic viruses and “will be the first comprehensive meeting combining RNAi and antiviral research.”
“The meeting will cover the most recent progress in the field by 22 invited presentations of internationally renowned researchers, complemented by shorter contributed oral presentations of young scientists and by poster presentations.”
Conference on Functional Genomics and Disease
The 3rd Conference on Functional Genomics and Disease will be held in Innsbruck, Austria next autumn. On 1 to 4 October 2008, over 50 speakers will present papers and conduct workshops on the topics ranging from molecular biology to epigenetics to personalized medicine. Of particular interest are the cutting-edge applications of genomics and proteomics in the field of cancer research (oncogenomics), neurology (neurogenomics), and vascular medicine (angiogenomics). Other topics of medical significance are lipidogenomics, inflammatory diseases and ageing. The conference is sponsored by the European Science Foundation. The first two conferences were held in Prague in 2003 and Oslo in 2005.
More details are to be found at:
Biotechnology and Health Meetings: Spain is the place to go this autumn
Spain is the venue of two major European conferences in autumn. The first one is the 13th European Congress on Biotechnology to be held in Barcelona on 16 to 19 September. This will be followed by the European Conference on Synthetic Biology (ECSB) in Costa Brava on 24 to 29 November.
The Biotech Conference’s main theme this year is Symbiosis (Science, Industry and Society). In additi
on, other themes on Health & Medicine, Functional Genomics & Systems Biology, & Green Biotechnology will also be addressed. The conference always draws big names in the field of biotechnology. Among this year’s plenary speakers are Prof. Svante Päävo, head of the Department of Evolutionary Genetics of the prestigious Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, and Prof. Donald Hilvert, director of the Hilvert Lab of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich, Switzerland. Under Health & Medicine, sessions on targeted medicines, nanobiotechnology, and gene delivery systems will especially be relevant for medical researchers.
The scope of ECSB is narrower since it deals with the relatively new, cutting-edge field of synthetic biology. This year’s theme is on Design, Programming and Optimisation of Biological Systems. However, the potential application of synthetic biology in our society is enormous “with its effects being felt across a range of activities such as the provision of healthcare, environmental protection and remediation to the construction of smarter more ubiquitous bio-integrated computing systems…” Topics on genomics, natural and directed evolution, and cell cycles & circuits promise to be especially interesting.
Both conferences are supported by the European Science Foundation, the European Federation of Biotechnology and several industry sponsors consisting of global movers in the field of biotechnology and pharmaceuticals.
Photo credit: http://www.esf.org/conferences/07241