From August 20 to 25, the XI International multi-conference on Bioinformatics Regulation, Genome Structure, and Systems Biology (BGRS \ SB-2018) was held in Akademgorodok. The Institute of Cytology and Genetics SB RAS and Novosibirsk State University organized the conference.
The first bioinformatics multi-conference was held in 1998. A large-scale scientific event has been held every two years since then. The number of participants has increased and the geographic representation has expanded with every conference. This year, 900 people took part in the multi-conference, including 100 foreign scientists from 32 countries.
"It's great that the University takes part in both the organization of the Conference and in the Conference itself", said NSU Rector Mikhail Fedoruk at the opening of the Conference.
Fedoruk continued, “Mathematical Biology was born at the University under the leadership of Aleksey Andreevich Lyapunov. It is wonderful that, after 50 years, this work continues in the world scientific community and, in particular, at the Siberian Branch institutes. We, in turn, are actively preparing professional cadres in bioinformatics”.
It is no coincidence that the main Conference sessions were held at NSU as the University and the Institute of Cytology and Genetics were first in the world to recognize the importance of Mathematical Biology, from which Bioinformatics grew. The first research work in this field began at these two organizations in 1968, exactly 50 years ago.
The infrastructure at NSU made it possible to conduct a large number of parallel sessions. During the five days of the Conference, 300 lectures from leading world and Russian scientists were given in the classrooms, as well as 300 “poster messages”.
Nikolai Kolchanov, Head of the Information Biology Section at the NSU Natural Sciences Department and scientific leader at the Institute of Cytology and Genetics SB RAS, described the Multi-conference,
The conference included a large number of events. It is called a multi-conference, because a wide range of subjects were discussed such as problems in mathematics and supercomputing connected with bioinformatics and system biology, related medical issues, and problems in agricultural science, and, in particular, plant bioinformatics. Also, issues such as cognitive problems, because cognitive decision-making processes, situational recognition, are coded at the genomic level.
