The UW CMB Student Symposium
May 14, 2007

The first Computational Molecular Biology Program Student Symposium will be held on Monday, May 14 in CSE 691. Please join us!

This is meant to be an informal and dynamic meeting, a chance not just to listen to talks but to discuss, debate, and troubleshoot ongoing research. Because we need to plan the catering, please let Mary Kuhner know by May 4 if you plan to attend. If the whole day is not possible, please consider coming for a half-day. (We will still feed you, as long as you sign up!)

Tentative schedule (check back here for evolving details):

Unsolved Problems Session For each of these half-hour sessions, a CMB faculty member will pose an unsolved question from his/her own research and the whole group will brainstorm approaches and solutions. 9:00 Dr. Jim Thomas (Genome Sciences), "Why are zinc-finger transcription factors subject to strong positive selection?" 9:30 Dr. Hong Qian (Applied Mathematics), "From biochemical reaction networks to cellular states: a computational approach" 10:00 Dr. John Mittler (Microbiology), "Unsolved problems in HIV-1 dynamics and evolution" 10:30 Dr. Walter L. Ruzzo (Computer Science and Engineering), "Scoring RNAs" 11:00-11:20 Break CMB Student Presentations Informal research talks by senior CMB students. 11:20 Shameek Biswas, "Characterizing Population Structure in Variance Components of Gene Expression Variation in Humans" 11:45 Jonathan Carlson, "HLA-mediated evolution in HIV-1: implications for T-cell-based vaccine design" 12:10-1:30 Lunch (generously provided by CSE). There will be a chance to continue the Unsolved Problems discussions over lunch, as well as meet and mingle with other CMB members. 1:30 Chris Saunders, "A mechanistic model of coding sequence evolution with context-dependent mutation rates" 1:55 Cindy Desmarais, "Exploring evolution and diversity in the human genome using the HKA test" 2:20-2:40 Break 2:40 James Thompson, "Inference of Spatial Constraints in Protein Structure Prediction" 3:05 Charla Lambert, "On the use of starlike genealogies in estimating ages of selective sweeps" 3:30 - 3:40 Prizes for "Best Student Presentation" and "Knottiest Student Problem" Keynote Presentation 3:40 - 4:40 Dr. Steve Henikoff (FHCRC), "Epigenomic profiling to study histone dynamics" 4:40 - 5:00 Discussion

Please note that the CMB Journal Club (CSE 590C) will be canceled for this day to permit attendence at the Symposium.