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EMBO Rep,
2010]
The town of Ascona in Switzerland, nestled on the northern shore of Lago Maggiore, hosted the 112 participants in the first systems biology meeting focused on developmental biology. The EMBO workshop was held between 16 and 20 August and brought together a multidisciplinary group of scientists who use systems approaches to understand how the size and shape of multicellular organisms and organs are determined.
Dengjel J, Suhnel J, Wuttke D, Fuellen G, Rebholz-Schuhmann D, Hoeflich A, Kestler HA, Vera J, Schmitz U, Hoeijemakers J, Schmeck B, Stolzing A, Kowald A, Priebe S
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Rejuvenation Res,
2012]
In an "aging society," health span extension is most important. As in 2010, talks in this series of meetings in Rostock-Warnemunde demonstrated that aging is an apparently very complex process, where computational work is most useful for gaining insights and to find interventions that counter aging and prevent or counteract aging-related diseases. The specific topics of this year's meeting entitled, "RoSyBA: Rostock Symposium on Systems Biology and Bioinformatics in Ageing Research," were primarily related to "Cancer and Aging" and also had a focus on work funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). The next meeting in the series, scheduled for September 20-21, 2013, will focus on the use of ontologies for computational research into aging, stem cells, and cancer. Promoting knowledge formalization is also at the core of the set of proposed action items concluding this report.
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Mech Ageing Dev,
2007]
Nearly 20 years ago, researchers discovered that lifespan can be extended by single-gene mutations in the nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans. Further studies revealed that the mechanisms governing aging in the smallest organisms have been evolutionarily conserved and may operate in human beings. Since then, the field of biogerontology has expanded considerably, learning from - and contributing to - such disparate fields as cell signaling, metabolism, endocrinology, and a wide range of human diseases including cancer. To date, newly discovered connections and novel interdisciplinary approaches gradually unify what once seemed unrelated observations between seemingly disparate research areas. While this unification is far from complete, several overlapping themes have clearly emerged. At the 95th International Titisee Conference, devoted to "The Molecular Basis of Aging," 60 of the world''s pre-eminent biogerontologists shared their most recent findings in the biology of aging, and discussed interdisciplinary connections between diverse fields.