Subject: Prequel to "Call for Papers" for Pacifichem 2005 Conference Symposium



A "Call for Papers" will be going out the end of this year for the
Pacifichem 2005 conference symposium on "Drug Discovery in a Systems
Biology World: Integration of Biology and Chemistry Information," but I
wanted to give you a heads-up to allow time to prepare abstracts.  A
second message will be sent out when the conference web site is prepared
to accept abstracts.

Pacifichem is an international conference of the Pacific Basin Societies
held every five years in Honolulu, Hawaii - with the next conference
held December 15-20, 2005.  The symposium is part of the Biological
Chemistry section of the conference.  Pacifichem has a tradition of
bringing outstanding presentations on the latest advancements in
research and development.  During the previous Pacifichem conference in
2000, over 6,000 reports were presented in 180 symposia in oral, general
and poster sessions - and Pacifichem 2005 expects to be even bigger and
better.

Focus of the Symposium:
Advances in the "omics" sciences (genomics, proteomics, metabolomics,
toxicogenomics) have recently enabled the development of better-focused
and more rational approaches towards target identification, validation
and prioritization. Such advances have also produced very large and
complex datasets, which are growing at an exponential rate, reflecting
the complexity of life and biological pathways. The integration of
biology and chemistry has led to a new set of informatics challenges and
knowledge management. The purpose of the symposium is to offer an
occasion to present and discuss the latest developments in the area of
systems biology and new ideas for linking biological and chemical
information, combinatorial chemistry, interpreting biological networks,
and clustering algorithms for data analysis and visualization. 

Content of the Symposium: 
The symposium consists of three half-day sessions (1 1/2 days in all)
plus a poster session.  Both invited and contributed papers will be part
of the program.  The major topics included are the following: Genomics,
Proteomics, Small Molecule Lead Identification and Optimization,
Metabolomics, and Toxicogenomics. An overriding theme of all sections is
the integration of biological and chemical information as the drug
discovery process moves from target identification to small molecule
synthesis to safety and efficacy assessment to clinical studies.

About the Pacifichem Conference:
The International Chemical Congress of Pacific Basin Societies,
Pacifichem 2005, is established to disseminate recent research results
in the chemical sciences among chemists of the Pacific Rim countries,
thereby fostering industrial development, improving local and global
environments and the material well-being of their peoples. 
The Congress is co-sponsored by the American Chemical Society (ACS), the
Chemical Society of Japan (CSJ), the Canadian Society for Chemistry
(CSC), the Korean Chemical Society (KCS), the New Zealand Institute of
Chemistry (NZIC), and the Royal Australian Chemical Institute (RACI).
Other Pacific Basin Societies have agreed to serve as Official
Participating Organizations.

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Please mark December 15-20, 2005 on your calendars for attendance at
Pacifichem 2005 and for those interested in presenting, either an oral
or poster presentation,  look for the official "Call for Papers" later
this year.

Bob Snyder
Pacifichem~at~comcast.net