00.00, Monday 16 May 2016
Fellows are invited to attend a discussion dinner at the Academy featuring a talk by Dr Ewan Birney FRS FMedSci, Associate Director of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Hinxton, Cambridge.
Attendance costs £60 per head which includes drinks and a three-course meal. Fellows may bring one non-Fellow guest.
Abstract:
Molecular biology is now a leading example of a data intensive science, with both pragmatic and theoretical challenges being raised by data volumes and dimensionality of the data. These changes are present in both “large scale” consortia science and small scale science, and across now a broad range of applications – from human health, through to agriculture and ecosystems. All of molecular life science is feeling this effect.
As molecular techniques – from genomics through transcriptomics and metabolomics – drop in price and turn around time there is a wealth of opportunity for clinical research and in some cases, active changes clinical practice even at this early stage. The development of this work requires inter-disciplinary teams spanning basic research, bioinformatics and clinical expertise.
This shift in modality is creating a wealth of new opportunities and has some accompanying challenges. In particular there is a continued need for a robust information infrastructure for molecular biology and clinical research. This ranges from the physical aspects of dealing with data volume through to the more statistically challenging aspects of interpreting it. A particular problem is finding causal relationships in the high level of correlative data. Genetic data are particular useful in resolving these issues.
The Centre for Therapeutic Target Validation – CTTV – a public-private partnership formed by three institutions; GSK, The Sanger Institute and EMBL-EBI provides an example of the potential for using this information for translational work in terms of finding and validating drug targets. I will discuss the broad area of Big Data analysis in translational research, illustrated by a number of examples from this unique partnership
For more information contact alison.rojo@acmedsci.ac.uk or book a place using the form below.