Proceedings of the 2009 MidSouth Computational Biology and Bioinformatics Society (MCBIOS) Conference

Abstract

MCBIOS 2009 was held February 20–21, 2009 at the Hunter Henry Center in Starkville, Mississippi on the Mississippi State University campus. The conference was hosted by the four research universities in Mississippi comprising the Mississippi Computational Biology Consortium – Jackson State University (JSU), Mississippi State University (MSU), the University of Mississippi (UM), and the University of Southern Mississippi (USM). Dr. Dawn Wilkins of UM and Dr. Susan Bridges of MSU served as conference co-chairs. Keynote speakers were Dr. Laura Elnitski, Head of the Genomic Functional Analysis Section at the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), Howard Cash, President and CEO of Gene Codes Corporation, and Dr. Cathy Wu, Director of the Protein Information Resource (PIR). Dr. Raphael Isokpehi of JSU organized a panel discussion entitled Careers in Computational Biology and Bioinformatics: Perspective from Employers and Students. Panelists were Dr. Ed Perkins of the U.S. Army Engineering Research and Development Center, Robert Cottingham of Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Dr. Doris M. Kupfer, Federal Aviation Administration, James C. Fuscoe, FDA National Center for Toxicological Research, and Cynthia Jeffries, student intern at ORNL. Over 40 student and faculty attendees also participated in the Speed Networking event organized by Dr. Isokpehi and featured in a recent Science Careers article [1]. Each person in the event spent 3 minutes talking to twenty other participants in the two hour session providing students an opportunity to interact with employers and with students from other universities in the region. Dr. Bindu Nanduri and Dr. Andy Perkins, both of MSU managed the setup, judging, and scoring of 80 posters. Monetary awards were provided by Dr. Ed Perkins. Student poster award winners were: first place – Eric Morales of the University of New Orleans (UNO), second place Teresia Buza of MSU, third place – Prashanti Manda of MSU and honorable mention to Amanda Alba of the UNO, Surya Saha of MSU and Sudhir Chowbina of the Indiana University School of Informatics. Student winners for oral presentations were: first place – Enis Afgan of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, second place – Lipi R. Archarya of UNO, and third place – Anastasia Chueva of Mississippi Valley State University.