An article in the May issue of Proteomics describes the Proteome Database System for Microbial Research at the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology.
Open Access To Scientific Literature: Can It Work?
A discussion of open access scientific publishing on the Slashdot website.
Conference on Small Molecule Science
Abstracts are due June 1 for the Conference on Small Molecule Science that will be held in Bristol, Rhode Island, August 8-14.
Standard Definitions of Terms Related to Mass Spectrometry
The MS Terms and Definitions project is outlined in the latest Chemistry International, IUPAC’s Newsmagazine.
Open Access News
Open Access News is a weblog with new on open internet access to scientific literature.
BaRf: Bioinformatics aggregated RSS feeds
BaRf is Bioinformatics aggregated RSS feeds – a nice hack on PubMed that generates an aggerate newsfeed for selected biotech journals.
Detectors and Sensors for CBNR Weapons
A workshop on Detector/Sensor Research and Technology
for Homeland and National Security: Chemical, Biological, Nuclear and Radiological Weapons, and Toxic Industrial Chemicals will be held September 14 -16, 2004 at the River Terrace in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Hosted by Oak Ridge National Labs.
BlogStreet Visual Neighborhood
Blogstreet has a Java tool that lets you visualize blog hyperlinking neighborhoods. You get a graphical representation of a small piece of the “web.”
MS Workshop in Russia
The Second Workshop on Mass Spectrometry in Chemical Physics, Biophysics and Environmental Sciences will take place in Zvenigorod Russia on October 4-7, 2004.
JCAMP-DX Page at Sourceforge
JCAMP-DX has a homepage and a SourceForge Project page.
MSQuant LC/MS Tool
SourceForge.net: Project Info – MSQuant: “MSQuant is a tool for quantitative proteomics/mass spectrometry and processes spectra and LC runs to find quantitative information about proteins and peptides. Though automated it also allows manual inspection and change.”
ASMS 2004 Conference Registration
The deadline for ASMS conference registration is March 31 if you are presenting, April 16 if you are not.
Open Source Software for Proteomics
“The Global Proteome Machine Organization was set up so that scientists involved in proteomics using tandem mass spectrometry could use that data to analyze proteomes. The projects supported by the GPMO have been selected to improve the quality of analysis, make the results portable and to provide a common platform for testing and validating proteomics results.”
Conference on MS Applied to CBW Agents
The 3rd Conference on Mass Spectrometry Applied to Chemical and Biological Warfare Agents will be held April 17-20, 2005 in Noordwijkerhout, the Netherlands. For more information, contact Dr. Ben L.M. van Baar at the TNO Prins Maurits Laboratory.
IUPAC Terms and Definitions Project
The IUPAC MS Terms and Definitions Project is now on the books. The associated website msterms.com is also up and running well.
Asilomar 2004
Asilomar Conference on Mass Spectrometry
Metabolite Profiling: Biomarker Discovery, Drug Efficacy and Fundamental Biochemistry
October 15 – 19, 2004
“Metabolites have gained increasing interest over the past five years largely
for their implications in diagnostic and pharmaceutical biomarker discovery.
Although numerous small molecules are routinely measured in biofluids as indicators
of health little is known about the vast majority of metabolites. For example,
biofluids contain thousands of components many of which remain structurally and
functionally uncharacterized. For this reason metabolite research and its potential
in health and pharmaceutical development has become one of the most exciting
areas of biological discovery. Three of the broad aims of this field are to identify
new disease biomarkers, monitor physiological reactions to administered drugs
and to understand the function of metabolites. This Asilomar meeting will focus
on the latest challenges in metabolite profiling spanning a broad range of interests
including research trends and instrument developments.”
If you are interested in participating as a speaker, please contact Gary Siuzdak.
The High Cost of Science Journals
In The Chronicle of Higher Education “Just Say No to Exploitative Publishers of Science Journals.” Some strategies for the coming revolution in scientific publishing.
JASMS Online Now at ScienceDirect
The on-line version of JASMS has a new home at Sciencedirect.com. If you are a member, you should have gotten an e-mail message with your password.
MS Terms and Definitions Web Site
I’ve started an MS Terms and Definitions website at msterms.com. This site will serve as the central web location for things related to the IUPAC MS Terms and Definitions Project.
Open Access to Scientific and Technical Information
I came across the background report for the Open Access to Scientific and Technical Information Conference when I was trying to figure out how much I liked the concept behind the Faculty of 1000 site. There is also a video of the webcast that has the discussion of this report (and other presentations). It’s good background for something we should all be thinking about.
The Faculty of 1000 concept is an interesting one – a Google for biomedical research articles. Experts rank the articles and a keyword search nets a page of hits as with Google’s Page Rank. But the Page Rank algorithm is more like the Citation Index with a page’s rank increasing with the number of inbound links. The Faculty of 1000 algorithm is based on popularity with potential for associated Tyranny of the Majority problems. Can popularity ranking stifle dissenting thought? We will soon see, it appears.