Title:  
On the ups and downs of informatics in biotechnology  

Abstract: 

Bioinformatics, or - more generally - life science informatics plays a
crucial role in the pharmaceutical industry, agricultural research
industry, and biotechnology.  It offers an unprecedented potential for
discovery and benefits, leading to advances ranging from inherently
disease resistant crops to personally-tailored, side-effect-free
medicines.  However, bioinformatics also provides an almost overwhelming
array of challenges, due in part to the rapid growth rate of the field
which did not allow sufficient time for standards to establish
themselves.  As a result, two of the greatest technical challenges in
bioinformatics are data integration and interoperability of tools.  

In addition to the technical challenges, the industry also faces the
"post-bubble" climate which meant the demise of several large, including
one of the four public, bioinformatics companies.   

This talk will present an overview of the changing landscape of life
science informatics, address the technical and business challenges, and
attempt a guess at predicting the future of the field. 
---
Maciek Sasinowski, Ph.D.
CEO, INCOGEN, Inc.
(Institute for Comptuational Genomics) 
Williamsburg VA 
www.incogen.com

Bio: 

Dr. Sasinowski received his PhD in computational plasma physics from the
College of William and Mary.  He established the Bioinformatics Center at
Clemson University's Genomics Institute in 1996.  Dr. Sasinowski founded
Incogen in 1998, and the company  offers  bioinformatics software and services
to optimize analysis and mining of genomic data.  The range of services include
software tools for data visualization, image reconstruction,  and genomic  data
mining.  Incogen is involved in  collaborative projects with the Virginia
Bioinformatics Institute and the College of William and Mary.  Dr. Sasinowski
was recently chosen by the Genome Technology magazine as one of the 15 most
influential people under 30 in genomics.

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