RECOMB-BE conference: August 26, 2012
RECOMB-AB conference: August 27-29, 2012
Early registration deadline (discount rate): Monday July 2, 2012
Online registration deadline (full rate): Friday August 17, 2012



 RECOMB Satellite Conference on Open Problems in Algorithmic Biology
                             (RECOMB-AB)
                          August 27-29, 2012
                        St. Petersburg, Russia
                    http://bioinf.spbau.ru/ab2012
                    recombab2012 at gmail dot com

       RECOMB Satellite Conference on Bioinformatics Education
                             (RECOMB-BE)
                           August 26, 2012
                        St. Petersburg, Russia
                    http://bioinf.spbau.ru/be2012
                    recombbe2012 at gmail dot com

KEY DATES:
 Abstract submission deadline                 Expired
 Request for visa voucher                     Monday July 2, 2012
 Early registration deadline (discount rate)  Monday July 2, 2012
 Online registration deadline (full rate)     Friday August 17, 2012
 On-site registration (full rate)             Available at conferences
 RECOMB-BE conference                         August 26, 2012
 RECOMB-AB conference                         August 27-29, 2012

OVERVIEW:

 The First RECOMB Satellite Conference on Open Problems in Algorithmic
 Biology (RECOMB-AB) will be held August 27-29, 2012 in St. Petersburg,
 Russia.  This workshop brings together leading researchers in the
 mathematical, computational, and life sciences to discuss current
 challenges in computational biology, with an emphasis on open
 algorithmic problems.  The program will consist of invited speakers,
 contributed speakers, posters, and discussion panels.

 The Fourth Annual RECOMB Conference on Bioinformatics Education
 (RECOMB-BE) will be held in St. Petersburg, Russia, August 26, 2012.
 RECOMB-BE 2012 will consist of invited presentations, oral
 presentations selected from submitted educational problems, and
 discussion panels, all of which focus on improving bioinformatics
 education.

 Saint Petersburg (formerly known as Leningrad) is Russia's second
 largest city.  The large historic center of Saint Petersburg, threaded
 with canals dotted with baroque bridges, is a UNESCO World Heritage
 site.  Its Hermitage Museum, housed in the Winter Palace (formerly
 called the Palace of the Russian Tsars), is one of the world's
 greatest collections of art.

REGISTRATION:

 Registration is now open through either conference website:
                    http://bioinf.spbau.ru/ab2012
                    http://bioinf.spbau.ru/be2012

 We offer discounts for early registration through July 2;
 discounts for jointly registering for both conferences;
 and discounts for students.  See the website for full pricing
 information.  If you have any questions about or difficulties
 with the registration process, please contact us at
 recombab2012 at gmail dot com.

 The conference website also provides information about visas.
 We recommend starting the visa process as soon as possible.

THEME AND SCOPE (RECOMB-AB: Open Problems in Algorithmic Biology):

 RECOMB-AB aims to discuss recent advances and present open algorithmic
 problems in different areas of life sciences.  Today, life sciences are
 in the midst of a major paradigm shift driven by computational
 sciences.  RECOMB-AB emphasizes that this is a two-way street: while
 life sciences have greatly benefited from new computational ideas,
 they also are a major source of new open problems and inspiration for
 computational sciences.  RECOMB-AB brings together leading researchers
 in the mathematical, computational, and life sciences to discuss
 interesting, challenging, and well-formulated open problems in
 algorithmic biology.

 Many areas of computational sciences started as an attempt to solve
 applied problems and later became more theoretically-oriented.  These
 theoretical aspects may be very valuable even if they stray away from
 the applied problems that originally motivated them.  Thus, RECOMB-AB
 is interested in a wide range of well-formulated open problems.  Some
 of them may be rather theoretical and have limited biological
 application.  The solutions of others might provide valuable tools for
 biologists or might lead to new biological discoveries.  This blend of
 theoretical and applied problems is a fascinating feature of
 algorithmic biology.

 The discussion panels at RECOMB-AB will also address the worrisome
 proliferation of ill-formulated computational problems in
 bioinformatics.  While some biological problems can be translated into
 well-formulated computational problems, others defy all attempts to
 bridge biology and computing.  This may result in computational biology
 papers that lack a formulation of a computational problem they are
 trying to solve.  While some such papers may represent valuable
 biological contributions (despite lacking a well-defined computational
 problem), others may represent computational "pseudoscience."
 RECOMB-AB will address the difficult question of how to evaluate
 computational papers that lack a computational problem formulation.

RECOMB-AB KEYNOTE SPEAKERS:

 Max Alekseyev (University of South Carolina)
 Vineet Bafna (University of California, San Diego)
 Mikhail Gelfand (Russian Academy of Sciences and Moscow State University)
 Sorin Istrail (Brown University)
 Richard Karp (University of California, Berkeley)
 Bernard Moret (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne)
 Stephen O'Brien (Saint Petersburg University)
 Pavel Pevzner (University of California, San Diego)
 Marie-France Sagot (INRIA, Université Lyon 1)
 Cenk Sahinalp (Simon Fraser University)
 Ron Shamir (Tel Aviv University)
 Glenn Tesler (University of California, San Diego)
 Tandy Warnow (The University of Texas at Austin)
 Michael S. Waterman (University of Southern California)

THEME AND SCOPE (RECOMB-BE: Bioinformatics Education):

 The goals of RECOMB-BE 2012 are twofold: to showcase best practices of
 teaching algorithmic bioinformatics and to demonstrate and discuss a
 novel learning framework (ROSALIND) for students to understand
 bioinformatics problems through programming within a guided feedback
 environment.

 While biology has been transformed into a computational science in the
 last decade, the biological curriculum remains largely unchanged with
 respect to computational issues.  The question: "How should we teach
 bioinformatics to biology students?" has become of the utmost
 importance, as many universities have not only founded undergraduate
 bioinformatics programs but are considering the addition of new
 computational courses to the standard biology curriculum - a change
 that would represent a dramatic paradigm shift in biology education.

RECOMB-BE KEYNOTE SPEAKERS:

 Michael Brudno (University of Toronto)
 Uri Keich (University of Sydney)
 Chris Lee (University of California, Los Angeles)


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