Plant Sciences Institute Symposium on Proteomics, Set For June 20-23

The Plant Sciences Institute's third annual symposium will be at Iowa State University, June 20-23. This year's topic is "Proteomes: Structure, Changes, Interaction and Function."

Marit Nilsen-Hamilton, professor of biochemistry, biophysics and molecular biology, said proteomics was chosen as the topic because it is an "emerging technology" in the biological sciences. Proteomic technology provides researchers with an overall view of the proteins that exist in each cell type of an organism.

"This technology is important because it is necessary to know the components of an organism and how these components interact to understand how an organism works," she said.

Subtopics for the symposium include computational proteomics, expressed proteomes-subcellular localization and changes, membrane proteins, function of protein families and emerging frontiers.

Some featured lectures include Gunnar von Heijne, Stockholm University, Sweden, who will discuss genome-wide analysis of membrane proteins, and Kimmen Sjolander, University of California, Berkeley, who will lecture on the polygenomics analysis of disease-resistance proteins in flowering plants.

Nilsen-Hamilton said about 200 scientists and students are expected to attend.

Nilsen-Hamilton said there will be a number of undergraduate students attending from other universities. Several educational workshops are scheduled to help them understand proteomic science and to give them the opportunity to interact with the scientists who attend the conference.

The symposium will be in the Scheman Building in the Iowa State Center on the Iowa State campus.

The symposium is sponsored by the National Science Foundation and Molecular Express Inc., and ISU's Plant Sciences Institute, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Office of Biotechnology, biochemistry, biophysics and molecular biology department, Miller Lecture Funds and Merck Research Laboratories.

The Plant Sciences Institute at Iowa State University is dedicated to becoming one of the world's leading plant science research institutes. More than 900 researchers in nine centers of the institute seek fundamental knowledge about plant systems to help feed the growing world population, strengthen human health and nutrition, improve crop quality and yield, foster environmental sustainability and expand the uses of plants for biobased products and bioenergy. The Plant Sciences Institute supports the training of students for exciting career opportunities and promotes new technologies to aid in the economic development of agriculture and industry throughout the state. The institute is supported through public and private funding.