Automated Function Prediction: selected proceedings from the ISMB 2011 special interest group

Simon Harold on May 3, 2013 at 1:06 pm - 0 Comments

BMC Bioinformatics has published proceedings from the Automated Function Prediction Meeting 2011 featuring the CAFA Challenge: Critical Assessment of Function Annotations.

Vienna, Austria. 15-16 July 2011.
Edited by Iddo Friedberg and Predrag Radivojac

The Critical Annotation of protein Function Prediction (CAFA) is a new community-wide experiment to assess the performance of protein function prediction methods. Thirty research groups participated in the first CAFA meeting , presenting a total of 54 methods. The results are published in an article in Nature Methods co-authored by all the attending groups.

The supplement is free to access, and is a companion to the Nature Methods article. The 15 articles describe some of the participating methods in depth.

CAFA is organized by Predrag Radivojac from Indiana …

Urology – En Vogue research in London, Milan and… San Diego

Simon Harold on May 2, 2013 at 1:31 pm - 0 Comments

Urology, like fashion, evolves at a fast pace with every season, bringing with it new trends in medical knowledge, in addition to unveiling exciting and innovative advances in surgical technology.

Here in London, BMC Urology were unable to attend this year’s Annual European Association of Urology (EAU) Congress in Milan. However, Dr Gianmarco Isgro’, an Associate Editor for BMC Urology, and his colleague, Dr Giovanni Battista Di Pierro, were in attendance and spoke to us about how the EAU Congress is an important and invaluable experience for the young urologist.

The Annual EAU Congress is a platform for the international urological community to share the latest and the most relevant knowledge with medical experts practising across the board. The use …

Highlights of the BMC-series: April 2013

Simon Harold on May 1, 2013 at 4:27 pm - 0 Comments

A grand plan for understanding life on Earth • (re)moving the mark of modification • Never say nematode again • Profiling the immune responses of deer mice • Looking forward, looking back • Heavy metal affects brain function • Lending a helping ligand

Biodiversity: a grand plan for understanding life on Earth

Understanding what drives the huge diversity of life on earth is perhaps the grand challenge of ecological research. Alex Hardisty and Dave Roberts bring us a little closer to realising this dream by outlining a grand vision for the future of biodiversity research that puts technological innovation and data sharing at its heart, following a huge community consultation effort with the Biodiversity Informatics Community. Our blog explains how …

BMC Biochemistry will see you at Experimental Biology 2013

Tom Rowles on April 18, 2013 at 1:10 pm - 0 Comments

BMC Biochemistry will be attending Experimental Biology 2013, which is being held at the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center from the 20th-24th of April. In addition to taking advantage of the wide range of talks on offer, our Executive Editor Tom Rowles is very interested in meeting with researchers to discuss their work and interests. If you would like to arrange a meeting with Tom at the conference then please do get in contact. BioMed Central will also have a booth in the exhibition hall (Booth 515), so please feel free to drop by there to say hello, or to arrange a convenient time to talk.

We would be particularly interested in discussing any research pertaining to …

BMC Infectious Diseases ist ein Berliner

Philippa Harris on April 17, 2013 at 3:54 pm - 0 Comments

Berlin has seen more than its fair share of microbiology pioneers, including Robert Koch and Paul Ehrlich. In light of this it is only fitting that Berlin will be the host city for the 23rd European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID 2013) from the 27th-30th April. BMC Infectious Diseases will be attending and are looking forward to a diverse range of talks. If you are interested in meeting to discuss anything please contact the Executive Editor Philippa Harris.

Old problems, new ways to solve them

Christopher Foote on April 16, 2013 at 3:22 pm - 0 Comments

EuroSciCon held their 10th annual ‘Histopathology: advances in research and techniques’ meeting at the Royal College of Pathologists in London on April 12th. The meeting was attended by histopathologists from across Europe, as well as by BMC Clinical Pathology. Topics ranged widely, from the introduction of the newest technologies to the best ways to utilise older techniques (the full agenda is available here). A particular focus was using methodological advances to drive discovery of new biomarkers for cancer and other diseases.

A recurring theme was the utilisation of new technologies in histopathology. Eveline Sjöstedt demonstrated how advances in histopathology can be applied to large scale research projects, presenting an update of progress with the Human Protein …

A systems approach to understand biodiversity

Simon Harold on April 15, 2013 at 9:34 am - 0 Comments

Adapted from Fig 6 Mantle et al ZooKeys 209, 147-163

A grand vision for the future of biodiversity research puts technological innovation at its heart, and calls for greater openness in data sharing, standardisation and citizen science.

Your smartphone might just help us understand how the natural world works. Snap a picture of a bird, tag the image with details of where and when you took it, and you could be helping scientists to understand – and quite possibly save – the world’s biodiversity.

Understanding what gives rise to the massive diversity of life on earth is perhaps the great challenge of ecological research. But to be able to predict how changes to this global system will affect the plants and creatures that live within it requires linking together huge amounts …

Increasing awareness of Schmallenberg virus – BMC Veterinary Research wants your papers

Hayley Henderson on April 11, 2013 at 2:26 pm - 0 Comments

As if the recent bout of cold weather hadn’t sufficiently served to increase the fears of British livestock farmers struggling with livestock losses, in addition to the falling price of lamb, several European countries, including the UK, are currently subject to the emergence of a devastating arbovirus affecting ruminant animals – Schmallenberg virus (SBV). Although not considered a notifiable disease, SBV was first detected in Germany in November 2011 [1] and is responsible for neurological defects, stillbirths and late abortions in sheep, cattle and goats [1-3]. However, there is a low likelihood of any risk to public health.

As an arbovirus, SBV has rapidly spread throughout Europe by infected vectors such as midges, mosquitoes and ticks. Favourable climate conditions reported …

BMC Hematology launches

Christna Chap on April 10, 2013 at 1:41 pm - 0 Comments

Today marks the launch of BMC Hematology within the BMC series of journals published by BioMed Central. Formerly known as BMC Blood Disorders, the journal was renamed in response to the feedback received from key opinion leaders in the field and in consultation with our Editorial Board. This change of name is intended to emphasize the journal’s commitment to representing the full breadth of disciplines and specialties in the hematology field in which rapidly evolving research findings translate into patient care. You can read more about the rationale behind this relaunch in this Editorial.

Since William Harvey introduced the then controversial concept of circulation in 1628, the field of hematology has come a long way. Important advances …

Ecological analysis, 75 million years in the making

Simon Harold on April 4, 2013 at 3:37 pm - 0 Comments

Parasaurolophus walkeri restoration_Steveoc 86_Wikimedia Commons cc

The fossilised bones of a diverse assemblage of herbivorous dinosaurs provide clues about the feeding ecology of these extinct creatures, but suggests more evidence is needed to find out how such diversity was able to be maintained.

The fossil record is a capricious thing; we take from it only what chance dictates is preserved through time. Such patchiness poses unique problems for paleoecologists like Jordan Mallon from University of Calgary and Canadian Museum of Nature, who is attempting to infer ecological relationships among species that coexisted millions of years ago. Unlike conventional ecological analysis of living specimens, studying the fossilised remains of dinosaurs means that quantitative analysis on large sample sizes is extremely difficult:

“This is especially true of terrestrial vertebrate …