E-Board No. 45

September 2006 ISDCI eboard

Dear ISDCI Members

Below are the messages for the September 2006 eboard. It includes meeting announcements and several job openings.

Let me know if you have any announcements or job searches for the next eboard in October.

Courtney Smith
csmith@gwu.edu

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A few ISDCI-X T shirts are still available, but this will be the last chance to get one. Send an email to Greg Warr at warrg@musc.edu.

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Aegean Conferences <info@aegeanconferences.org>

Dear Colleague,

It is my pleasure to invite you to participate in the 4th International Workshop on Complement Associated Diseases, Animal Models, and Therapeutics which will be held at the Porto Heli Conference Center, Porto Heli, Greece, June 10-15, 2007. The meeting is designed to serve as a forum to discuss the most recent progress in complement research as it pertains to human disease pathogenesis and therapeutics.

Sessions will convene in the mornings and early afternoons and will include lectures by invited speakers, as well as talks and poster presentations selected from submitted abstracts. If you would like to view the proceedings of the last CADIAMAT, copies are available through Springer at a special rate at: http://www.aegeanconferences.org/AegeanConferencesFlyer.pdf

The deadline for receipt of abstracts, early registration, and hotel reservations is March 15, 2007. Please note that due to limited space, the workshop will be restricted to 70-80 participants. If you plan to attend, please fill out the pre-registration form on-line (by clicking on the "Registration Desk" link in the header) at http://www.aegeanconferences.org. Please note that the cost of the accommodation package is 1310 Euro. The accommodation package includes registration, 1 night hotel accommodation in Athens, 4 nights hotel accommodations in Porto Heli, welcome dinner in Athens, transfer with High Speed Dolphin to Porto Heli, meals, and a tour to Epidaurus.

In order to encourage the participation of young scientists, the Aegean Conferences is offering Trainee Travel Awards to offset a portion of the travel expenses to the Conference. The recipients of these awards will be selected based on the scientific merit of abstracts submitted by applicants.

Additional information will be sent only to people who respond to this announcement and pre-register on-line. For your convenience and to expedite the communication process, registration materials, including abstract and hotel reservation forms, are available on the web site at www.aegeanconferences.org.

Information on Porto Heli, travel to Greece, hotel accommodations, etc. is also available on the web site. Updated information will be available through this site.

I look forward to welcoming you in Athens/Porto Heli for a scientifically stimulating and socially enjoyable meeting.

John D. Lambris, Ph.D.,

Professor of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine
University of Pennsylvania
401 Stellar Chance
Philadelphia, PA 19104
422 Curie Boulevard
Phone: 215-746-5765
FAX: 215-573-8738
E-MAIL:lambris@mail.med.upenn.edu
http://www.lambris.net
http://www.complement.us


PS. To download and print a full size poster for your bulletin board go to:.
http://www.aegeanconferences.org/4thcomplement/ANIMAL.pdf

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Post-doctoral position in Marine Invertebrate Molecular Biology

Greg. Warr and Paul Gross (members of the Department of Biochemistry at the Medical University of South Carolina) and located at the Hollings Marine Laboratory in Charleston, SC invite applications for a two year post-doctoral position available immediately. This project is focused on elucidating the components of the RNA interference pathway in the Pacific whiteleg shrimp, Litopenaeus vannamei, associated with functional immunity to viral infection. Candidates must possess a Ph.D. in a relevant field of molecular biology. The successful candidate will be expected both to work in a team-oriented collaborative atmosphere and to take advantage of opportunities for developing independent research within the scope of the project. Applicants should submit, via email, curriculum vitae, statement of research experience, copies of any relevant publications, contact information, and three letters of reference to Dr. Warr <warrgw@musc.edu> or Dr. Gross <grossp@musc.edu>. The Medical University of South Carolina is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer and encourages applications from women and minorities.

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Two positions (Postdoctoral or Predoctoral) are available immediately in the area of comparative immunobiology. The applicant will be involved in studying the role of newly discovered phagocytic B cells in innate and adaptive immune reactions of fish, amphibians and mammals (see our recent publication in Nature Immunology, October issue, 2006: B lymphocytes from early vertebrates have potent phagocytic and microbicidal abilites). Additional projects in the laboratory include the study of innate immune reactions in fish (i.e., complement, Toll receptors) and the development of new adjuvant substances and molecules to improve the efficacy of fish vaccines. The applicant should have strong background in the areas of cellular and molecular immunology. More specifically, the successful applicant should have extensive experience in fluorescence-assisted cell sorter (FACS) analysis, cell culture techniques, standard immunoassays (i.e., ELISA, Western blotting). Familiarity with confocal and fluorescence microscopy and/or experience with standard protein biochemistry techniques is strongly encouraged. CONTACT: Interested applicants email a cover letter, an updated C.V. including a list of your publications, and the names/addresses of 3 references to:

Dr. J. Oriol Sunyer
Department of Pathobiology
School of Veterinary Medicine
3800 Spruce st., 413 Rosenthal Bldg.
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA 19104
Email: sunyer@vet.upenn.edu
Telephone: 215-5738592
Fax: 215-8987887

Closing date: 12/22/06


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Marine Genomicist

The Department of Biology, College of Charleston, invites applications for a tenure-track position at the Assistant Professor level to begin August, 2007. This position is part of our new marine genomics program, (http://marinegenomics.org ) involving the college’s Grice Marine Laboratory (http://www.cofe.edu/~grice ) and several adjacent federal and state institutions. Candidates must possess a Ph.D. in Biology or a closely related field, a strong commitment to teaching, and an active research program in genomics and marine biology involving undergraduates. Teaching responsibilities include a sophomore level course in genetics, and undergraduate and graduate courses in genomics that could serve as offerings in our interdisciplinary program in discovery informatics (http://di.cofc.edu). The College of Charleston is a public liberal arts institution of 10,000 students. The College’s primary goals are teaching and research excellence. In addition to its undergraduate programs, the department offers M.S. degrees in Marine Biology and Environmental Studies. Information about the Biology Department is available at http://www.cofc.edu/~biology. Applicants should submit a curriculum vitae, statement of teaching and research interests, copies of relevant publications, and three letters of reference by November 1, 2006 to: Chair, Department of Biology, Marine Genomics Search Committee, College of Charleston, Charleston, SC 29424. The College of Charleston is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer and encourages applications from women and minorities.


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College of Charleston Endowed Professorship in Bioinformatics

Applications are invited for the Endowed Professorship in Bioinformatics at the College of Charleston. This is one of two endowed appointments to be made within the Center for Economic Excellence in Marine Genomics being developed in partnership between the College of Charleston and the Medical University of South Carolina. It is anticipated that the appointment will be made at the level of Associate Professor or Professor in the Department of Biology at the College (see www.cofc.edu/~biology) and this position will carry a joint appointment with the Medical University of South Carolina.

The successful applicant will have a demonstrated track record as a scholar in a collaborative and collegial setting, a strong commitment to teaching at all levels and to mentoring both graduate and undergraduate students, and, ideally, will also have significant experience with the mechanisms for enhancing research value through economic development (e.g., intellectual property, interaction with relevant industries, translational research activities, etc.) Experience as a research team leader or as a research program director is highly desirable.

The individual appointed will be expected to provide academic and program leadership to the Bioinformatics Group within the Marine Genomics Program in Charleston and to interact with the newly established Discovery Informatics program at the College of Charleston. The appointee will be expected to develop or enhance a strong extramurally funded research program in bioinformatics, especially as applied to marine genomics, mentor graduate students, teach courses in their area of expertise, and promote economic initiatives related to their research that could assist relevant stakeholders.

The Marine Genomics Program is an integrated, highly collaborative effort that brings together over 40 faculty, students and staff from the College of Charleston, the Medical University of South Carolina, the SC Department of Natural Resources, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (both agencies of the U.S. Department of Commerce) on the Fort Johnson Marine campus, five miles from downtown Charleston. In addition to these Charleston-based agencies, the Marine Genomics program has a strong network of contacts and collaborations regionally, nationally and internationally. The Marine Genomics program is focused on applying the power of genomic approaches to increasing understanding of the interactions of marine organisms with their environment, including infectious diseases, and the relationship between the oceans and human health. Historic Charleston SC, with its location on the biologically very diverse southeast Atlantic marsh, is a natural and beautiful surrounding for articulating a globally driven effort to monitor, understand, protect and manage the marine environment.

The current Marine Genomics Program bioinformatics infrastructure (http://marinegenomics.org, see also BML Genomics 2005, 6:34) includes cDNA and RNA sequence information for over 20 species, working as a clearing-house maintaining over 60,000 sequence entries, and with both databases increasingly rapidly. In the past year, the bioinformatics research and development efforts have added a strong focus on expression data to assist in the design of microarrays for the in-house production facility and the subsequent acquisition and analysis of microarray hybridization data (see publications in the Marine Genomics Program URL). This is a unique opportunity for both fundamental and applied advances as the Marine Genomics Program and its worldwide network of associates are starting to use these microarrays beyond in vitro experimentation, and increasingly as tools for experimental field biology. The bioinformatic component of this initiative has been described as a biosensor calibration exercise (Comparative and Functional Genomics, 6(3):132-137(6)) which creates the opportunity for fundamental advances in systems biology by correlating the transcriptomic information with metabolic, regulatory and signaling information. A marine proteomics component is emerging that will reinforce the ability to move towards systemic approaches to marine biology.

The successful candidate will coordinate an existing team of programmers and computational biologists and will drive the conceptual and theoretical interpretation of the experimental results. The Bioinformatics effort is configured as an active member of the open source community and as such is driven towards publication of results, dissemination of open source software tools and articulation of the data repositories with public resources such as those maintained by NCBI and EMBL. Accordingly, the computing infrastructure is based on Linux blade servers and the tools use open community-supported software tools, languages and libraries.

Additional information about this position can be obtained from Dr Norine Noonan, Dean School of Sciences and Mathematics, at NoonanN@cofc.edu or the chair of the search committee, Dr. Louis Burnett, at BurnettL@cofc.edu.

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