?: The budget for bioinformatics: L: No budget per se, 1 million USD for this project (ministry of science gave half), much more for equipment

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1 ROUND TABLE DISCUSSION: Janez Stare (J) Roman Jerala (R) Blaž Zupan (B) Gregor Anderluh (G) Leon Esterman (L) Drago Kuzman (D)?: The budget for bioinformatics: L: No budget per se, 1 million USD for this project (ministry of science gave half), much more for equipment R: What is the purpose of their own database? L.: we have raw data, if we wanted to make something in BLAST, we would need a lot of space (50 more than is available); a lot of new data is contaminated it has to be cleaned, but people have their own work, it would take a lot of time to be able to BLAST it.?: Different universities specialized in different areas are a part of COBI. Why? L: Nobody is perfect. If someone needs a perfect database, you don t need to make everything from the beginning, if someone is very good at something, you can use them. J: Are you not killing the competition? L: there is no competition, a lot of people are interested in... If you are good they ask you to do something. At Weizman we can stop the contract if somebody is not giving satisfactory results. We can give it to someone else. B: What is the participation of the industry? L: Industry (every start-up) is working on something very small and very secret. They are not interested in participating in knowledge. It is difficult to work with industry G: Maybe the representative of industry can say something? D: I am a researcher in Urleb's group in Lek. Almost all of the topics of today will be needed now or in the near future. Lek is generic company, currently we are working with NIB, where they would like to increase the fermentation, this is done

2 by microarrays. In the near future there will be need for comparing generic drugs with original ones. In the group where I come from we work on in-silico biology (drug interaction), another part of bioinformatics is in the use of microarrays for»- omics«. Our goal is to develop new drugs not new tools. G: This is quite important to know: what is the need for bioinformatics profile? What are the numbers in Israel? L: Weizman is producing 20 every year, every year altogether in Israel?, part of them is going to industry and the other part to university. R: In Slovenia, the bioinformatics-course is two times a week,? hours (currently), such a short course is not enough to cover bioinformatics. There could be some joint courses for masters degree with computer and biology students. I think there is no need to start with bioinformatics at the bachelor level. Bioinformatics is really a very wide subject. G: Metka Renko proposed to organize Bioinformatics as a Masters study in new Bologne reform. Briefly, the courses are designed for biologists differently then for informatics people. B: Are these two different programs? For Ljubljana University, I think we should have only one program at the same level. L: In Weizman, people who are coming for Masters or PhD, if they come from computer science, they have to give more interest in biology and vice versa. Program is similar to one which is also in Harvard university. People understand it is difficult to be just computer scientist, people learn if you give them a chance G: Mojca Miklavec (M) can tell us how it is in Munich M: Students, who already have a degree, are able to do Bachelor only for one year and a half. You have a chance to get the knowledge which is missing - if you are a mathematician, you don't have to do math. We were able to choose three courses, according to our choice, team work was stressed this is missing in Slovenia. In Masters study, ten or nine student with team of professors, working on a project?: Professors from what departments?

3 M: the core group from bioinfo institute, we had 4 semesters of informatics, very little biology or chemistry. There are ~ 100 students in the 1st year, which dropped to as little as 7 students. In Slovenia personal contact with the professors is missing, 200 students in lecture room is too much. Professors have some project work and students can experience through the work on these projects T. Pisanski: If you have several departments, you can emphasize on different themes. B: In Slovenia the students are not really willing to work in teams. They often say that its much nicer to work alone. M: There we have much less lessons per week (which means much more free time). At the beginning I could attend twice as much lectures as an average student there. If you follow this lectures you can learn for exam in two days. In the job you have to work as a team you have to learn that. Someone: it would be useful to have a Masters in Bioinformatics. Bioinformatics is included in every biology study (Bachelor an Masters level) now, so they can learn how to use these tools, biochemistry is also going to include it, it's going to be at Bologna PhD level. B: The trouble of bioinformatics at bachelor level in the present system, the quality will be low. Teachers at Slovene university get payed for undergraduate courses only, graduate courses are treated as extra work paid by a contract. It is impossible to teach good graduate courses if you have 5 undergraduate courses. It would be better if all the courses one teaches could be considered for a base salary, thus in fact reducing the teaching load. Pisanski: In our Faculty, this is already so and graduate courses count for a base teaching load. Everyone tries to teach graduate courses they have more weight. Lah: with Bologna now it's time to change things G: You are right, I agree

4 Lah: Universities and institutes are partners, they form interdisciplinary programs, they are very good so far Someone: I don t see any problems of having Bioinformatics as a combined program from more faculties G: We have people from different places and we can do something Lah: We need 1-2 persons to make this (M. Renko could do this) G: perspective of Bioinformatics in Slovenia. We need something to combine people from this field. What kind of cooperation do we need? Do we need to establish COBI? Is it enough to meet on yearly basis? Pisanski: How did it happen in Israel for bioinformatics to become the national priority? L: You need to think about it as soon as possible. Cooperation of a lot of people. Get together people from many faculties, make a decision, go to the director of the University. If you need any help you can come to Weizman, see what happens get the knowledge. Lah: We need promotion, not only go to minister, also write in papers, publicize, go to people responsible in Slovenia. G: As a director of NIB, do you thing we need services to combine people (like COBI)? Lah: Yes, a structural knowledge center (like NMR center) L: if you go to minister, government will help. Stay in contact, have a webpage G: We shall put everything from this meeting on internet. Pisanski: Is there a society of bioinformatics in Israel?

5 L: Yes, association. The most important thing is to look at this globally not locally. Someone: a lot of people are not aware of power of bioinformatics. We have to organize some practical workshops, where people can come and work with this tools and see for themselves. For example, organize two workshops next year. As in Israel at the beginning there was not interest, but that it increased. L: If you are interested we can organize some international workshop people from Israel can come. G: This is a good idea, this has been happening already, SBD organized it - Kristina Gruden organized it B: Society of bioinfo I am inclined to that, but it is too much work, no one has the time. We can ask the two societies that sponsored this meeting to form a joint body. We can meet on this basis. One society has established journal which Janez is editing. Pisanski: Also the informatics society And Statistical society B: If we can combine this four (?) societies and go to the Ministry of Science and also other ministries. CONCLUSION Was this meeting useful, how to continue (on a two year basis, as a part of some other meeting, next time we do it internationally). If there is someone who would volunteer to do it next year it would be better to be on a yearly basis. We could combine it with SBD congress? Devote one day for bioinformatics? J: Medical informatics society has annual meetings and we are thinking of including bioinformatics.

6 Blejec: Every year there is a conference in statistic, everyone is invited Someone should write something for Znanost Mailing lists of participants Book of abstracts Keep in contact Write something in Znanost for promotion Report from this round table