Northwest Symposium on Systems Biology
Sponsored by PNNL and the Biomolecular Sytems Initiative

The inaugural Northwest Symposium on Systems Biology part of the Biomolecular Systems Initiative was held at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) on Oct. 17-18, 2002. This was the 40th year in which the laboratory has held interdisciplinary science symposia to address important biological questions. This year we started a new series of symposia on systems biology. Particular focus was on identifying current breakthrough technologies and their application to important model systems. By integrating computational sciences, high-throughput technologies and quantitative biology, we hope to facilitate advancements in this important new area of research.

In this first year, the focus was on the four different research areas contained within the new U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Genomes to Life program. This program is the successor to the Human Genome Project and exceeds it in scope and ambition. Its goal is to understand the basis of life and "to venture beyond characterizing such individual life components as genes and other DNA sequences toward a more comprehensive, integrated view of biology at a whole-systems level." These goals will be met by:

1. identifying the protein machines that carry out critical life functions
2. characterizing the gene regulatory networks that control these machines
3. exploring the functional repertoire of complex microbial communities in their natural environments to provide a foundation for understanding and using their remarkably diverse capabilities to address DOE missions
4. developing the computational capabilities to integrate and understand these data and begin to model complex biological systems.

The PNNL-led Biomolecular Systems Initiative (BSI) exploits the unique set of capabilities and innovative technologies housed in the DOE's user facility, the William R. Wiley Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory (EMSL). The BSI (http://www.biomolecular.org) is a multidisciplinary research program whose proteomics, cellular observatory, and virtual cell components deal with issues associated with integration of molecular biology, biochemistry, physics, mathematics, and computer science to understand complex biological systems.

Guest Speakers were:

Roger Brent - Molecular Sciences Institute - Berkeley, California
Ed DeLong - Research Institute of the Monterey Bay Aquarium
Jim Fredrickson - Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Caroline Harwood - University of Iowa
Troy Ideker - Massachusetts Institute of Technology
David Low - University of California at Santa Barbara
Martin Rechsteiner - University of Utah
John Scott - Oregon Health & Science University
David Stahl - University of Washington
Jim Tiedje - Michigan State University

Click here to order proceedings for this symposium, Advances in Systems Biology.