A Preview of Bio-IT World Expo 2012

March 25, 2012

Some of what the editors and producers are most looking forward to at the 10th anniversary Bio-IT World celebration!

March 26, 2012 | On April 24-26, Bio-IT World will host its tenth anniversary conference in Boston, and anticipates the largest gathering to date, along with a record 125 companies exhibiting this year. More than 200 speakers will present in a total of 12 concurrent conference tracks, as well as 15 short courses, not to mention the 2012 Bio-IT World Best Practices Awards and the Best of Show exhibit prizes.  

Here are just a few of the potential highlights on this year’s program:

A Friend at FDA
Eric Perakslis is no stranger to Bio-IT World Expo, but now he dons the mantle of Chief Information Officer at the Food and Drug Administration. What are Perakslis’ priorities for the agency and what impact will those initiatives have on the science and medical communities?
Keynote | April 25 

Trench Trends Back by popular demand, Chris Dagdigian (BioTeam) offers his indispensable "Trends in the Trenches" annual review of what’s hot and what’s hype in the IT/HPC space.
Tracks 1-3 | April 26

Topic of Cancer
This plenary session features a discussion from four key opinion leaders in cancer with a wide range of expertise, from translational research (John Quackenbush, Dana-Farber) and drug development (Julian Adams, Infinity Pharma) to clinical trials (Jose Baselga, MGH) and molecular diagnostics (John Burn, UK).
Plenary | April 26 

See IT in the Cloud?The Cloud Computing track kicks off with a ground-breaking case study, as Metrum’s Jeff Hane and BioTeam’s Adam Kraut describe how they put their entire IT and computing infrastructure into the cloud. Could your organization do the same? Also, don’t miss the panel discussion on HPC/Life Science in the Cloud, moderated by past keynote Deepak Singh (Amazon).
Track 3 | April 25-26 

Broad Alliance Ten years ago, Broad Institute director Eric Lander provided the opening keynote at Bio-IT World Expo. This year, Martin Leach (Chief Information Office) and Jill Mesirov (Chief Informatics Officer) deliver the opening keynote.
Keynote | April 24  

Health SystemsA parade of sepeakers including Zak Kohane (Children’s Hospital, Boston), Mark Hulse (CIO, Moffitt Cancer Center) and Sandy Aronson (Partners Healthcare) discuss new informatics platforms aiding clinical disease genomics studies and patient care.
Track 8 | April 25 

Clinical IntegrationClinical trial monitoring and overcoming challenges in integrating systems and clinical operations data, as discussed by Biogen Idec’s Christine Gibson and Garen Avetissyan, will be a recurring theme in the e-clinical track.
Track 7 | April 25 

Bench Barrier
Guna Rajagopal (Robert Wood Johnson Medical School) on overcoming the barrier on data flow between bench and bedside for translational research and personalized cancer therapies.
Track 9 | April 25  

Knight VisionA new track for 2012—Molecular Diagnostic Informatics—kicks off with Sir John Burn (Newcastle UK) discussing progress in point-of-care diagnostics and sequencing technologies and applications, and Foundation Medicine’s COO Kevin Krenitsky on introducing individualized cancer genome analysis into the clinic.
Track 10 | April 25

Multiscale MissionA revamped track dedicated to the latest incarnation of systems biology approaches in academia (Avi Ma'ayan, Mount Sinai School of Medicine) and big pharma (Sandy Allerheiligen, Merck & Co.) among others.
Track 6 | April 26

Franklin FellowIn an annual tradition, The Bioinformatics Organization presents the Benjamin Franklin Award for 2012. This year’s recipient is Heng Li (Broad Institute).
Plenary | April 25