Next year (2014) events are schedules at Melbourne, Australia.

http://www.icsb14.com/pages/about-us.php

The Law group provides internal Institute-specific development, training and support roles for data manipulation, sequence analysis and any other aspect of the analysis of biological data using computer systems. Additionally we provide databases and applications supporting the international animal science community, particularly tools and resources for genome mapping.

Head: Andy Law. Members: John Bowman (animal facility database applications), Zen Lu (bioinformatics support), Trevor Paterson (software development)

More @ http://www.bioinformatics.ed.ac.uk/groups/roslin-bioinformatics-group

---how genetic variation is distributed within and between individuals,
---determining how this diversity changes over evolutionary time.

Hence, Cox group work at the interface between biology, statistics and computer science to address questions of outstanding biological importance through intrepretation of large genetic datasets.

Profile:
Associate Professor Murray Cox,
Inaugural Rutherford Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand, Principal Investigator in the BioProtection Research Center and Associate Investigator in the Allan Wilson Center for Molecular Ecology and Evolution
Email : m.p.cox@massey.ac.nz
Webpage: http://massey.genomicus.com/index.html

My client provide innovative biomarker discovery and development services to the pharmaceutical industry. They partner with the pharmaceutical industry to develop and implement biomarker strategies, providing a full range of biomarker services from pre-clinical biomarker discovery, assay development, right through to the delivery of clinical tests in their CLIA lab.

As a Senior Statistician you would support this effort and be responsible for the management of technical experimental study design and data handling processes required for the discovery, development and commercial delivery of multiplex clinical diagnostic assays; You will:

Develop analytical experimental designs for multiplex clinical diagnostic assays in accordance with regulatory requirements (e.g. CLIA, FDA)
Lead and coordinate the evaluation of analytical studies including characterization, verification, and validation studies
Lead specification setting and specification alterations
Ensure DOE methodology is routinely used in analytical studies.
Work with the Operations Department to ensure robust, reproducible and precise assay development
Provide expertise of general aspects for Statistical Process Control
Provide statistical expertise for R&D, Quality, and Manufacturing
You will work in a fast-paced, project orientated environment and the ability to plan and execute objectives under tight timelines is a must. This is a unique opportunity suited for a qualified statistician with an interest in working to deliver first class data analysis support and solutions in a clinical setting.

Requirements

MSc or PhD in statistics or a related discipline
In depth knowledge of DOE methods to analytically validate, monitor and trouble shoot multiplex clinical diagnostic assays, ideally in a commercial/industrial setting
Experienced in the analysis of statistical technology evaluation, independent data and dependent data analysis, medical diagnostic accuracy, statistical graphics and reproducible reporting.
Excellent interpersonal, communication (including written and spoken English)
Ability to independently manage multiple projects and to deliver results on time per project deadlines
Proficient programming and analysis skills in one or more statistical package (e.g. R, Stata, SAS)
The following skills, while not mandatory, are highly desirable:

Development and validation of predictive models
Experience of clinical epidemiology, survival analysis, biomarker research, Bayesian methods, quantifying predictive accuracy.
Knowledge of regulatory standards for CLIA and/or FDA IVD tests
Reward

An attractive remuneration package will reflect the importance of this role and will include 6.8 weeks annual leave (pro rata, including fixed closure days), company pension scheme, enhanced sick pay and maternity entitlements, healthcare plan and opportunities for learning and development, as well as access to a company restaurant and parking facilities

Bioinformatician replied:

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RNAs, especially non-coding RNAs (such as microRNA, long ncRNAs) are recently identified to be very abundant in mammalian organisms and play some key roles in gene expression regulation, gene silencing, and also implicated in disease progression, stem cell pluripotency etc. Current research activities of our lab include analysis of expression pattern of ncRNAs by microarray and next-gen sequencing data and understanding the role of miRNAs or other regulatory RNAs in various diseases, especially cancer and validation by reporter assays (renilla/luciferase) and other experimental tools.

More @ http://vvekslab.in/index.html

The blind mole rat (Spalax) is an intriguing creature worthy of study. This was animal research examining the resistance subterranean blind mole rats (Spalax) have to cancers. Blind mole rats are one of a unique group of animals that spend their lives underground, are tolerant of very low oxygen levels (down to only 3% concentration – levels that would kill a human), have a long lifespan of more than 20 years, which is exceptional for a small rodent, and show no clear signs of ageing or age-related diseases.

This research has demonstrated the unique abilities of the blind mole rat to resist cancer, even when directly given potent cancer-causing chemicals. In this study researchers gave blind mole rats potent cancer-causing chemicals either through injections or applied directly to the skin, but the animals didn't develop cancer.

Remarkably, connective tissue cells (fibroblasts) taken from the blind mole rat even prevented the growth of human cancer cells when they were grown together in the laboratory.

In the laboratory, the researchers also demonstrated how connective tissue cells called fibroblasts taken from the animal seem to play an important role in this cancer resistance. These cells prevented the growth of human cancer cells when the two types of cells were grown together in the laboratory.

The researchers concluded that, "This report provides pioneering evidence that Spalax [the blind mole rat] is not only resistant to spontaneous cancer, but also to experimentally induced cancer, and shows the unique ability of Spalax fibroblasts to inhibit growth and kill cancer cells, but not normal cells, either through direct fibroblast-cancer cell interaction or via soluble factors."

Nonetheless, there remains optimism that understanding the anti-cancer mechanisms of mole rats may one day help inform further cancer treatments for humans, but a lot more research – and probably a significant amount of time – is needed before this can be considered.

Reference:

Image: telegraph.co.uk

http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7007/11/91

Manov, Irena, et al. "Pronounced cancer resistance in a subterranean rodent, the blind mole-rat, Spalax: in vivo and in vitro evidence." BMC biology 11.1 (2013): 91.

http://www.nhs.uk/news/2014/01January/Pages/Claims-of-a-universal-cure-for-cancer-misleading.aspx

http://www.express.co.uk/news/health/454188/EXCLUSIVE-Cure-for-ALL-cancers-is-on-the-way-as-scientists-discover-major-breakthrough

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2540321/Could-mole-rats-hold-key-cure-cancer-Scientists-hail-potentially-life-changing-breakthrough.html

It was first developed to transfer annotations between different genome assembly versions. However, it can also transfer annotations between strains and even different species, like Plasmodium chabaudi onto P. berghei, between different Leishmania species or Salmonella enterica onto other Salmonella serotypes. RATT is able to transfer any entries present on a reference sequence, such as the systematic id or an annotator's notes; such information would be lost in a de novo annotation.

More at http://ratt.sourceforge.net/

Address of the bookmark: http://ratt.sourceforge.net/