Subject: Symposium on complexity and bioactive discovery at Pacifichem December 2005

From: Dave Winkler <dave.winkler ^^^ csiro.au>
Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2005 08:58:54 +1100

PACIFICHEM 2005
December 15-20 2005, Honolulu, Hawaii

http://www.pacifichem.org

Pacifichem is one of the world's largest chemical 
congresses, presenting in excess of 5000 papers 
in a diverse range of topics, and attracting top 
researchers in many fields of chemistry.  It is 
held in the major hotels on Waikiki beach.  The 
congress is somewhat unusual as it is made up of 
a large number of symposia that have been 
proposed as hot areas by researchers.  Although 
it is very large, it is streamed to avoid clashes 
between symposia who may have audiences with 
overlapping interests.

Symposium number 7 in the Medicinal Chemistry theme is

Complexity and Related Computational Methods in Bioactive Discovery

Many chemical and biological systems are 'complex 
systems' that exhibit emergent properties and 
behaviour often not well modelled by reductionist 
approaches. Novel complex systems science tools 
such as neural networks, and other agent-based 
methods, genetic algorithms and genetic 
programming, artificial ant colonies, particle 
swarms, nonlinear methods, knot theory etc are 
finding increased application in chemistry and 
bioactive discovery and development (drugs and 
ag/vet agents). This symposium will provide an 
opportunity for participants to present their 
work on these new methods, and to probe the 
extent to which a complex systems science (CSS) 
approach to bioactive discovery is useful for 
developing new leads. It will challenge 
participants to explore other CSS methods in 
modelling chemical and biological systems and 
developing novel bioactive agents. The symposium 
will also probe the overlap between traditional 
computational approaches to drug discovery and 
development, ADMET modelling, and related fields 
and methods of complexity. The symposium is very 
broad based and will accept any papers relating 
to computational approaches to bioactive design, 
discovery and development, and complexity methods 
applied to chemistry and bioactive discovery.

Invited speakers include: Dimitris Agrafiotis 
(J&J); Gerry Maggiora (Arizona); Bennett Levitan 
(J&J); Bernard Testa (Lausanne); Tim Clark 
(Erlangen); John Finnigan (CSIRO); Frank Burden 
(Scimetrics); Prof. Yuzong Chen (NUS); Monty Kier 
(VCU); Val Gillett (Sheffield); Tudor Oprea; 
Martyn Ford; John Gasteiger (Erlangen); 
Jean-François Truchon (Merck); Peter Stadler 
(Leipzig).

Contributed papers are very welcome.  All 
delegates wishing to present a paper (invited or 
contributed, oral or poster) must submit an 
abstract on-line. Please read the guidelines 
first. The electronic abstract system can then be 
accessed via the Online Abstract Login button on 
the web site.

The deadline for receipt of abstracts is 13th 
April 2005; late submissions will not be accepted.

I look forward to meeting you in Honolulu next December
-- 
Cheers,
Dave

Prof. David A. Winkler FRACI CChem CPChem	Email: dave.winkler ^^^ csiro.au  
CSIRO Centre for Complexity in Drug Design	Voice: 61-3-9545-2477
Senior Principal Research Scientist    		Fax:  61-3-9545-2561
CSIRO Molecular Science		                  or 61-3-9545-2446
Private Bag 10,Clayton South MDC 3169 	http://www.csiro.au
Australia	       				http://www.molsci.csiro.au

Join us at CONNECT2005 
(http://www.pco.com.au/connect2005/) 3-7 July 
2005, the Royal Australian Chemical Institute's 
National Convention, the 11th Asian Chemical 
Congress in Seoul, August 24-26 2005 
(http://www.11acc.org/), and Pacifichem 2005 in 
Honolulu December 15-20 
(http://www.pacifichem.org).