CAMDA 2016 Conference

The 15th CAMDA conference will be held in Orlando, Florida, from Friday, July 8 through Saturday, July 9, 2016. As in recent years, CAMDA runs as a Satellite Meeting of the Annual International Conference on Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology (ISMB).

The emergence of Big Data in the life sciences is considered one of the grand challenges of our time. The interpretation of large data sets is now one of the scientific key techniques in the post genomic era. Still the data analysis bottleneck limits genome scale experiments in providing new medical and biological insights at a larger scale. This trend towards the need for analysing massive data sets is further accelerated by novel high throughput sequencing technologies and the increasing size of biomedical studies.

CAMDA focuses on the analysis and integration of the massive data sets now prevalent in the life sciences. It introduces new approaches and solutions to the Big Data problem, and presents new techniques in the field of bioinformatics, data analysis, and statistics for handling and processing challenging large data sets. By discussing cutting-edge problems and opportunities, the conference offers researchers from a wide range of fields a unique opportunity to benefit from a critical comparative evaluation of approaches to exploiting Big Data in the life-sciences.

This year, the scientific committee of CAMDA has set three data analysis contest challenges:

• The Oxford Nanopore ‘wiggle space’ challenge where several samples had their DNA sequenced by Nanopore long read next-next-generation sequencing as well as more established sequencing technology. This is then to be evaluated on a 'mystery' sample of patient microbiota.
• Sequencing Quality Control neuroblastoma study - a comparison of RNA-seq and Agilent microarray gene expression profiles for clinical endpoint prediction.
• A toxicogenomics study with matched NGS and microarray profiles for the response of over 100 rat livers to 27 chemicals with 9 different modes of action.

Leading scientists from around the world are selected to present their analyses in talks, complemented by poster sessions. Papers based on the submitted extended abstracts submitted for presentation at the meeting are published in the conference proceedings. Starting with 2012, CAMDA has entered a partnership, publishing the CAMDA Proceedings as an open access PubMed indexed special issue of Systems Biomedicine (Taylor and Francis; formerly Landes Bioscience). As in last years, there will be prizes for the best contributed analysis / presentations. The three prize winners will receive a free one-year subscription to F1000Prime (worth $250) and a free submission to F1000Research (worth $1000). The first prize winner will additionally receive the prestigious CAMDA award.

We cordially invite you to attend this year's CAMDA in Orlando!