Dear NGS users/developers, please consider sending your work on NGS methods and applications to the 5th Hitseq meeting. This year it is going to be in Long Beach, CA. Please find the (last) call for abstracts below. Cheers, Gunnar HiTSeq 2012: Conference on High Throughput Sequencing Methods and Applications http://www.hitseq.org July 13-14, 2012 in Long Beach, CA, USA Last Call for Abstracts (Deadline Extended) Key Dates: * June 1st – Abstract submission deadline (EXTENDED) * June 8th – Oral/Poster Presentation Decisions * June 30th – Late breaking poster deadline * July 13-14 - Conference Overview: The Conference on High Throughput Sequencing Methods and Applications (HiTSeq 2012) is a Satellite of the ISMB 2012 conference and brings together biologists and computational scientists interested in exploring the challenges and opportunities in the analysis of high- throughput sequencing (HTS) technologies. HiTSeq 2012 welcomes submissions on any topic related to high throughput sequencing technologies. We are especially interested in presentations describing methodology to infer various genetic variants (SNVs, small and larger insertions/deletions, copy number variants), methods for analysis of RNA sequencing data (RNA expression, de-novo transcriptome sequencing, novel transcript discovery), and other applications of HTS (transcription factor binding site discovery, methylation profiling, cancer somatic aberration analysis, genome-wide disease association studies by HTS, metagenomics). We are also interested in algorithms for compressing and handling effectively large amounts of HTS data, and the analysis of data from the emerging 3rd and 4th generation sequencing platforms. Keynotes: * Dr. Chris Sander. Chair, Computational Biology Program, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. * Dr. Stan Nelson. UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center. New: Special track on “Personal Genomes for Individualized Medicine” There is currently a surge in the sequencing of “personal” genomes (or exomes) with the intent of applying them in clinical decision-making.

From the diagnosis of Mendelian and idiopathic diseases, the identification of somatic mutations in cancer tumors to guide therapy selection, to the prediction of susceptibility to complex disease to enable prophylactic actions, the applications of personal genomes herald an imminent change in how clinicians use genetic information in individualized medicine. Nevertheless, an analysis bottleneck is becoming apparent, and thus algorithms, methods, visualizations, and efficient software to handle the onslaught of medical genomic information are badly needed.

In this special track of HiTSeq 2012 we aim to showcase the methods and tools that academic and industry researchers are developing in this area, and to encourage a vigorous discussion of what is needed to go forward. We are seeking paper and abstract submissions with an emphasis on analysis methods for the case when the sample size is n=1 (i.e. the patient), how to make genome sequence analysis efficient & clinical grade, as well as new techniques to summarize the wealth of genomic information for clinical decision-making. Applications ranging childhood diseases, cancer treatment, and complex disease susceptibility are all welcome. This special track session will be held on the second day of the SIG (July 14). Abstracts: Simultaneously, HiTSeq also allows for submission of abstracts, which will be evaluated independently for the meeting proceedings. The abstracts should target topics of immediate relevance in the field. To be considered for an oral presentation the material should not have been previously published in any journal or proceedings. Late breaking poster abstracts will be also accepted for exceptional research results that became available after the other deadlines. Please check the conference website for submission instructions. Oral/Poster presentations: Presentations at HiTSeq may be either plenary talks or a poster at the meeting’s poster session. The final decisions whether each paper or abstract is presented as a talk or a poster will be made by May 30. Organizers: Gunnar Rätsch, Sloan-Kettering Institute, USA Francisco M. De La Vega, Stanford University, USA Inanc Birol, British Columbia Cancer Agency, Canada Sohrab Shah, British Columbia Cancer Agency, Canada Questions? Contact e-mail: hitseq2012@hitseq.org -- Dr. Gunnar Rätsch Associate Professor and Lab Head Computational Biology Center Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center Office address: 415-417 E 68th street, Room Z-690 New York, NY 10065, USA Postal address: 1275 York Avenue, Box 357 New York, NY 10065, USA http://ratschlab.org ratschg@mskcc.org p: +1 646 888 2802 f: +1 646 888 3105 ===================================================================== Please note that this e-mail and any files transmitted from Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center may be privileged, confidential, and protected from disclosure under applicable law. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient, or an employee or agent responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any reading, dissemination, distribution, copying, or other use of this communication or any of its attachments is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender immediately by replying to this message and deleting this message, any attachments, and all copies and backups from your computer.