Subject: 98.04.20 Comp.Chem & Living World -- Chambery Meeting

From: <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 16:17:12 +0100 (NFT)

*** [Modified by Jan Labanowski -- [email-masked]
***  Registration forms and detailed information available
***  in CCL Conference List:
***    http://www.ccl.net/cca/info/conferencelist.html
***  under 98.04.20
*** ]

                        European Conference
                                on

             COMPUTATIONAL CHEMISTRY AND THE LIVING WORLD: 
                       FROM SEQUENCE TO FUNCTION. 

               Chambery (French Alps), 20-24 April, 1998

                           Organised by the

       Physical Chemistry Division, French Chemical Society (SFC)
            Bunsen-Gesellschafft fur Physikalische-Chemie, 
        Faraday Division of the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC),
                    Division di Chimica Fisica (SCI),
                       French Biophysical Society.

                  International Scientific Committee:

 J.C. Smith (CEA-Saclay, Chairman); R. Botter (DCP Paris), secretary; 
 J. Brickmann (TH Darmstadt); J.E. Dubois (U. Paris VII);  J. Garnier 
 (INRA-Jouy);  M. Karplus (U. Strasbourg);  R. Lavery  (IBPC, Paris); 
 B. Maigret (U. Nancy); C. Chipot (U.Nancy); G. Richards (U. Oxford); 
 E. Soulie  (CEA-Saclay);  J. Tomasi (U. Pisa);  C. Troyanowsky  (DCP 
 Paris).
_______________________________________________________________________

                            SECOND CIRCULAR
_______________________________________________________________________

A - SCOPE OF THE MEETING
    ____________________

    The results of the genome projects are expected to lead to a scien-
    tific revolution in the beginning of the next century. The complete 
    gene sequences of organisms of several different levels of develop-
    ment,  including  Homo Sapiens,  will be  available.  This enormous 
    amount of genetic information will be in the form of nucleotide se-
    quences.  The information present in  a gene sequence is translated 
    in the cell into a protein  sequence.  This sequence determines the 
    way the protein folds into  a three-dimensional architecture, which 
    confers biological function (catalysis, recognition, etc.). 

    The question arises as to how to exploit the genetic information as 
    effectively as possible.  To do this will require  an understanding 
    of the processes of translation of the genetic information from se-
    quence  to structure and function.  Both theory  and experiment are 
    expected to play major roles in  obtaining this understanding.  The 
    meeting in Chambery will focus on the role of computational chemis-
    try in the activity that will be sparked by the genome results. How 
    can numerical calculation help us to understand  and exploit genome 
    sequences ?  How can modelling and simulation help in understanding 
    how amino-acid sequence  is translated  into three-dimensional bio-
    logical structure, the functional interactions of  these structures 
    and the effect of engineered modifications ?   

    The meeting will be covering  the following topics,  organised into 
    three themes: sequence analysis, biomolecular structure and folding 
    and biomolecular function.  Research into the chemistry of biologi-
    cal macromolecules requires close cooperation between theorists and 
    experimentalists. In the present meeting we hope to attract  scien-
    tists from both fields. We have invited a number of leading experi-
    mentalists  to give lectures,  and hope to emphasize the broad com-
    plementarity  between theory  and experiment in the lectures rather 
    than specialized discussion of theoretical methodology. 

    The meeting  is expected  to be of  interest to  researchers in all 
    branches of computational chemistry, as well as  structural and mo-
    lecular biologists  and biochemists.  The consequences for industry 
    of success in the endeavours discussed above are enormous, and this 
    has been realised in several drug companies that  have set up inte-
    grated  computational/experimental  groups  on  sequence-structure-
    function relationships. 

B - PROVISIONAL PROGRAMME
    _____________________

    MONDAY APRIL 20-th
    __________________

               8.45-9.15 Welcome.

             THEME 1: SEQUENCES
             __________________

              9.15-10.00 Jean-Michel Claverie (Marseille)  "Analysis of 
                         gene sequences"  
             10.00-10.30 Pause + Exhibition. 
             10.30-11.15 Antoine Danchin (Paris) "The Genome Projects".  
             11.00-12.15 Three short talks

             14.00-14.45 Cyrus Chothia (Cambridge) "Patterns in Protein 
                         Structure"
             14.45-15.15 Charles Brooks (Scripps Institute) "Simulation 
                         of Protein Folding"
             15.15-15.45 Two short talks. 
             15.45-16.15 Break.
             16.15-17.15 Oral Poster presentations.
             17.15-18.15 Poster session.
                   18.30 Reception by the Mayor of Chambery.

    TUESDAY APRIL 21-st 
    ___________________

             THEME 2: FOLDING AND STRUCTURE   
             ______________________________

              9.00- 9.45 Mannfred  Sippl (Graz)  "Molecular  forces  in 
                         protein folding and prediction." 
              9.45-10.45 Three short talks         
             10.45-11.30 Pause + Exhibition.
             11.30-12.15 Michael Hecht  (Princeton)  "De Novo  Proteins 
                         from Designed Combinatorial Libraries."  

             14.00-14.45 Eugene Shakhnovitch  (Harvard) "Lattice Models 
                         of Protein Folding" 
             14.45-15.45 Three short talks.
             15.45-16.15 Break.
             16.15-17.15 Oral poster presentations. 
             17.15-18.15 Poster session.

    WEDNESDAY APRIL 22-nd
    _____________________
              9.00- 9.45 Wilfred  van  Gunsteren  (Zurich)  "Reversible 
                         Protein Folding in Solution by MD Simulation" 
              9.45-10.30 Pause + Exhibition.
             10.30-11.15 Three short talks.

                         AFTERNOON FREE:
                       - Ski trip
                       - Wine trip
                       - Visit of the city

    THURSDAY APRIL 23-rd
    ____________________

              9.00- 9.45 Chris Dobson  (Oxford) "Nuclear Magnetic Reso-
                         nance in Protein Folding" 
              9.45-10.30 Pause + Exhibition.
             10.30-11.30 Three short talks.
             11.15-12.15 Eric Westhof (Strasbourg)  "Simulation of Nuc-
                         leic Acid Structure"  

             THEME 3: BIOMOLECULAR INTERACTIONS AND FUNCTION
             _______________________________________________

             14.00-14.45 David Chandler (Berkeley)  "Statistical Mecha-
                         nics of Biological Interest" 
             14.45-16.00 Pause + Exhibition.
             15.30-16.30 Three short talks.

                   20.00 Banquet and Blues concert  "The Baskerville's 
                         Blues Band"

    FRIDAY APRIL 24-th
    __________________

              9.00- 9.45 Harel Weinstein (New York)  "From  sequence to 
                         molecular mechanism  in G-protein  coupled re-
                         ceptors:  structural   motifs  as   functional 
                         microdomains." 
              9.45-10.30 Pause + Exhibition.
             10.30-11.30 Three short talks.
             11.30-12.15 Klaus Schulten (Illinois)  "Evolution of effi-
                         cient light harvesting in photosynthesis - One 
                         goal, many solutions."  (this talk will be mo-
                         ved to eariler in the week). 

             14.00-14.45 Wayne C. Guida (Novartis Pharmaceutical) "Drug 
                         Design"
             14.45-16.30 Oral presentations and final discussion.

_______________________________________________________________________

                            CALL FOR PAPERS
_______________________________________________________________________

Attendents who want to present  a poster or  make an oral  presentation 
should send a one-page abstract. Authors who would like to make an oral 
presentation  are asked  to send  their abstract AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.

_______________________________________________________________________

                    PUBLICATION OF THE PROCEEDINGS
_______________________________________________________________________

The proceedings of this meeting will be published as a special issue of
Theoretical Chemistry Accounts (formerly Theoretica Chimica Acta), Edi-
ted by R. Lavery  and  J. Tomasi.  Principal  speakers are  invited  to 
prepare full articles, that present  their  recent results or  give  an 
overview  of  their  contributions.  Full articles can contain up to 24 
double-spaced pages of text  plus figures. Short talks and posters will 
be published in the form of letters, which can contain up to 12 double-
spaced pages. Speakers  are urged to  bring their manuscripts with them 
to  the meeting  to enable  rapid refereeing. The ABSOLUTE DEADLINE for 
submissions will be March 31-st 1998.  Instructions  for authors can be 
obtained from the Web site:

http://link.springer.de/link/service/journals/00214/  

or from any copy of "Theoretical Chemistry Accounts". 

It should  be  noted  that  colour figures  will be  published  free of 
charge, and that it is possible  to add  supplementary  material in the 
form of web archives.

        [JKL -- Additional information in CCL archives in
         Conferences section:
         http://www.ccl.net/cca/info/conferencelist.html
         REGISTRATION AND WHEREABOUTS, ETC.
           http://www.ccl.net/cca/info/conferencelist/mess0205.html
        ]
_______________________________________________________________________

Chris Chipot                         
Laboratoire de Chimie Theorique          Phone:      (33) 3-83-91-25-96
U.M.R. C.N.R.S. No 7565                  Fax:        (33) 3-83-91-25-30
Universite Henri Poincare - Nancy I       
B.P. 239
54506 Vandoeuvre-les-Nancy Cedex         E-mail: [email-masked]

`The light shines through the darkness
 and the darkness has not overcome it'
_______________________________________________________________________