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As part of the "Year of Science 2007", the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona) and the Barcelona Supercomputing Centre – Centro Nacional de Supercomputación (BSC-CNS) will gather around 150 scientists from prominent biomedical research institutes and centres in Spain, to present the supercomputing opportunities offered by the MareNostrum in the field of the life sciences. The scientific conference, “Computational Biology: Biomolecular Simulations, Bioinformatics and Supercomputing”, will be held from 24-25 May at the Campus Nord at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC).
"MareNostrum optimus est", states Joan J. Guinovart, director of IRB Barcelona - one of the centres for research in biomedicine whose researchers in bioinformatics and molecular pharmacology regularly use MareNostrum to conduct their projects. "Owing to the calculation capacity of the supercomputer, unprecedented advances are being made in the understanding of biological systems that will ultimately benefit society as a whole", adds Dr Guinovart. Francesc Subirada, associate director at BSC-CNS, explains that "the BSC aims to foster collaborations between multidiciplinary research groups, thereby facilitating scientific progress. The collaboration between life sciences researchers and computational scientists is already bearing fruits in important areas such as molecular modelling, computational genomics and bioinformatics".
The seminars in computational biology will take place over two days, with presentations in the mornings and late afternoons. The lectures offered on the first day will be of a scientific nature; speakers from renowned centres of bioinformatics in the country and current users of the MareNostrum will present innovate scientific results obtained in 2006 with the help of the supercomputer. The lectures given on the second day will be more technical and the team of BSC experts will present different scientific projects. The efficient use of supercomputing resources applied to the field of bioinformatics, including some practical examples of the node of the Instituto Nacional de Bioinformática (National Institute for Bioinformatics;INB), will also be explained.
All attendees will have the opportunity to visit the MareNostrum. This conference is sponsored by Genoma España, INB and Silicon Graphics.
For the full programme, please visit
www.bsc.es/compbiol2007
About IRB Barcelona
The Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona) pursues a society free of disease. To this end, it conducts multidisciplinary research of excellence to cure cancer and other diseases linked to ageing. It establishes technology transfer agreements with the pharmaceutical industry and major hospitals to bring research results closer to society, and organises a range of science outreach activities to engage the public in an open dialogue. IRB Barcelona is an international centre that hosts 400 researchers and more than 30 nationalities. Recognised as a Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence since 2011, IRB Barcelona is a CERCA centre and member of the Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology (BIST).
