Seminar 27th April 2012 3 p.m. Building 85, Room 6003
Computational biofilm research
Dr Analia Lourenco
University of Minho
- Web page
- http://biopseg.deb.uminho.pt/AnaliaLourenco/
- Submitter
- Luke Goater
Dr Analia Lourenco
Dr Analia Lourenco from the University of Minho will be visiting the university next week. We have persuaded her to give a talk while she is here entitled Computational approaches to standard-compliant biofilm data for reliable analysis and integration.
Computational approaches to standard-compliant biofilm data for reliable analysis and integration
Lourenço A., Azevedo, N. F., Pereira, M.O.
Most of the existing microorganisms subsist as heterogeneous surface-associated colonies known as biofilms. Understanding the persistence of these colonies is of great importance to human development, namely to clinical, industrial and environmental areas. Biofilms have numerous biotechnological applications and are a major cause of infection, presenting an increasing resistance to clinically relevant antibiotics. Similarly to other research domains, the biofilm domain is entering the “omics” age and, as biofilm research grows to be a data-intensive discipline, the need for suitable bioinformatics approaches becomes compelling. However, efforts are hampered by the inexistence of a concerted strategy for data standardisation, organisation and deposition. Therefore, we proposed two computational approaches to biofilm data standardisation and organisation: Morphocol and BiofOmics frameworks. These frameworks will allow the search and comparison of similar biofilm and biofilm-phenotypic signatures, and enable data integration and interoperability across research groups as well as with other biological databases. MorphoCol is a new Web-based framework for the modelling and analysis of biofilm phenotypic signatures, supported by the novel phenotypic ontology, the Colony Morphology Ontology (CMO), to share knowledge on the colony morphology variations of infection-causing bacteria. BiofOmics addresses data standardisation on new-to-come biofilm experiments, as well as on already published studies, and allows the storage and exchange of biofilm data. To ensure the interpretability of experimental results as well as their independent verification, we are also developing a standard initiative called MIABiE, the Minimum Information About a Biofilm Experiment. Hopefully, this will be the starting point for broader community discussion and proactive participation.
The talk will be on Friday 27th April at 3pm. Building 85 room 6003.
This promises to be an interesting talk. We look forward to seeing you there.
Please forward to anyone else you feel may be interested.
Contact for further information
Name: Sam Collins
Phone: 023 8059 4301
E-mail: S.L.Collins@southampton.ac.uk