General

Conference: Quest for Orthologs 3

Lausanne, 24-26 July 2013

Conference program

University of Lausanne

Proteins and functional modules are evolutionarily conserved even between distantly related species, and allow knowledge transfer between well-characterized model organisms and human. The underlying biological concept is called ‘Orthology’ and the identification of gene relationships is the basis for comparative studies.

More than 30 phylogenomic databases provide their analysis results to the scientific community. The content of these databases differs in many ways, such as the number of species, taxonomic range, sampling density, and applied methodology. What is more, phylogenomic databases differ in their concepts, making a comparison difficult – for the benchmarking of analysis results as well as for the user community to select the most appropriate database for a particular experiment.

The Quest for Orthologs (QfO) is a joint effort to benchmark, improve and standardize orthology predictions. In 2009, there was a first meeting of groups working on orthology detection and phylogenomic databases, titled "Quest for Orthologs". This meeting was successful in defining a community of researchers with shared goals, who decided to collaborate on benchmarking and sharing reference datasets. This was followed by a second Quest for Orthologs meeting in 2011, during which work on benchmarking continued, with fruitful discussions on the evolution of gene function between orthologs (the "ortholog conjecture"), the need for increasingly clear evolutionary definitions, and emerging new methods.

The QfO is an international scientific meeting that covers all aspects of orthology prediction, benchmarking, and application. Participants are Principal Investigators and leading experts in the field. Results of the meeting are likely to have a direct impact on the provision of high-quality orthology predictions by phylogenomic databases and the design of trend-setting concepts for future applications.

The meeting will focus on the following topics:

4 years QfO: Results

• Orthology Benchmarking: Results, Interpretation, New Ideas
• Standards: Reference Datasets, Representative Species, Formats
• Homology and gene relationships: Definitions, Predictions, Confidence

>35 Ortholog Databases - Meeting the User ?!

• Content and Structure of Ortholog Databases
• Application of Orthology

The conference program is available now.

Practical organization

Abstracts
The scientific organizers request that you submit an abstract when registering. Some abstracts will be selected for poster presentations and some will be selected for oral presentations. Please have your abstract ready to be copied in the Comment section during application.

Abstracts should be less than 400 words, including references. They will not be formally published nor circulated outside of the Quest for Orthologs workshop without authorization, to encourage the presentation of unpublished results and of work in progress.

Abstract deadline: June 14, 2013.

Application
Closed.

Travel information
The closest airport to Lausanne is Geneva airport, Zurich is an alternative with more frequent transatlantic flights. Trains between Geneva airport and Lausanne (45 minutes) and between Zurich airport and Lausanne (2.5 hours) run more or less frequently, dependent on the time (SBB).

Hotels
It is recommended to reserve hotel rooms soon, best near Lausanne train station or near the University of Lausanne. There is a pre-reservation of rooms in the Hotel Elite until June 14. For more hotels, see Lausanne tourisme; examples are Hotel AlaGare, Hotel Continental, Hotel des Voyageurs, and LHotel.

Public transport
Public transport is free for hotel guests.

Contact
QfO3@isb-sib.ch

Funding

Herbette Foundation