3/6/2015
Innovation in Action newsletter, March 2015
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The Pistoia Alliance newsletter for March 2015.
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Innovation in Action News
Project updates
March 2015
Diary dates
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Zurich Conference Agenda
We are pleased to announce the full agenda for the public day
of our Spring conference on April 14th in Zurich, Switzerland.
Registration is open to anyone with an interest in life science
R&D and is free of charge. The second day on April 15th is
open to Core and Participating members only.
Speakers include Jo Pisani (PwC), Peter van der Spek
(Erasmus University Medical Centre), Jakob de Vlieg (Bayer),
Joe Donahue (BioReference Laboratories), Ruud Schoemaker
(Friesland Campina), Stuart Robertson (Exostar), as well as a
number of our members. The full agenda can be found on our
website.
Register for the Pistoia Alliance Annual European Conference
Celebration of Success
On Wednesday 11th February, the Pistoia Alliance hosted its
annual evening dinner and discussion in the Royal Society of
Chemistry’s Library at Burlington House, London. The event
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celebrated past successes and looked forward to future
potential. Speaker slides, and (coming soon) recordings of the
presentations are all available on our website.
A Pistoia Alliance “Lunch & Discussion” on the topic of
Interactive Genome Analysis was hosted earlier that same day.
Please see the meeting summary below.
We also recently announced many new members,
demonstrating that the Pistoia Alliance continues to grow
by building on its success. New members are coming from all
types of life sciences organisations, ranging from big pharma to
small biotechs and technology vendors to academic institutes.
In the News
The Challenges of Compliance for Controlled
Substances in a Global Marketplace
ChemAxon Biomolecule Toolkit includes HELM
compatibility
Pistoia Alliance Welcomes a Host of New Members
Global Compliance Service for Controlled Substances to
Expand to China
Four business cases developed for new project ideas
ChEMBL 20 takes the HELM
Pistoia Alliance Begins 2015 with a Celebration of
Success
Evotec adopts CSCS solution
Agenda announced for our Spring Conference in Zurich
Boston Networking Reception
If you can't join us in Zurich, why not come along to meet us
at our networking reception to be held during the Bio-IT World
Expo in Boston, MA on April 22nd?
Join us for drinks and networking with members and friends of
the Pistoia Alliance who are attending Bio-IT World Expo 2015,
or who just happen to be in the neighbourhood!
Register for the Pistoia Alliance networking reception in Boston
Pistoia Alliance Debates
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Our "Pistoia Alliance Debates" webinar programme continues to
attract large audiences. Recordings of every webinar are
available on our blog.
Our next webinar is entitled Text-mining for pharma R&D in a
social world and will be held on Tuesday 17th March from 34pm UK time (11am-12pm Eastern DST, 8-9am Pacific DST, 45pm CET). Full details are available on our events page.
Register for the Pistoia Alliance Debates webinar on textmining
Catch up on the Pistoia Alliance Debates webinar on Big Data: Solution or Pollution?
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Catch up on the Pistoia Alliance Debates webinar on Ontologies as the glue for
knowledge management.
Techonomy Bio
The Techonomy Bio conference is taking place at the Computer
History Museum in Mountain View, CA on 25th March. Chris Waller, a Pistoia Alliance board member and Director of
Scientific Modelling Platforms at Merck, will be taking part in the
opening session, You Say You Want a Revolution, along with
Drew Endy of Stanford, David Glazer of Google, and Steve
Jurvetson of DFJ. It should be a fabulous conversation and
David Kirkpatrick, the conference co-founder and Chief
Techonomist is really looking forward to moderating it.
There is a unique registration link (promotional code PISTOIA)
for Pistoia Alliance members and their friends to register at a
discounted rate of US$195.
Project updates
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Active Projects
CSCS Expert Community
The CSCS (Controlled Substance Compliance Service) Expert
Community has largely completed its work on China that was
announced earlier this year, and is now considering new
jurisdictions to investigate and new technical challenges to
address.
Evotec became one of the first companies publicly to announce
its adoption of a CSCS-based solution via a press release that
clearly demonstrates the value that this project has to offer the
life sciences community.
An article describing the work of the CSCS Expert Community
was published in Scrip Regulatory Affairs on January 9th. If
after reading this you have been inspired to join the project
team, please do not hesitate to contact Claire Bellamy, the
project manager. Additional information is also available on the
CSCS section of our website.
HELM
HELM (Hierarchical Editing Language for Macromolecules) has
had a very successful couple of months. Two announcements
were made regarding the adoption of HELM, one from the EBI's
ChEMBL 20 project on its incorporation of the HELM standard,
and the other from ChemAxon regarding the compatibility of its
Biomolecule Toolkit with HELM notation.
The team looks forward to the 1.3 version of the HELM Editor,
incorporating new extensions from Roche for working with
antibodies, and is now planning the next batch of features to be
developed. These include specifying how ambiguous structures
can be represented in HELM notation.
As always the project team welcomes and encourages new
members to join and any interested parties should contact the
project manager, Claire Bellamy, for more details. Additional
information is also available on the HELM section of our
website.
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Starting Soon
Map of Alliances
The landscape of alliances, foundations, partnerships and
consortia in the life sciences world is complex, with many
organisations existing that may overlap in their aims or share a
significant proportion of their membership. Understanding our
place in this complex web of connections is essential for costeffective and productive life science research.
We have commissioned a piece of research to illustrate this
network and ultimately produce the results as a public resource.
We have recruited Eangelica Aton to take on the project
management role for this Map of Alliances, starting from late
April, but we have already started gathering ideas and
suggestions via IP3.
Seeking Funding
Ontology Equivalence Mapping
Based on a positive business case, we are taking this new
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project idea forward for funding from our membership. Ian
Harrow will be contracted to project manage the work once
sufficient funds are raised, and we are delighted to announce
that Gordon Baxter (Instem) and Martin Romacker (Roche)
have accepted the roles of projects lead and project champion
respectively.
The project aims to develop an expert community around the
application and consumption of ontologies, define requirements
for a tool that can map between equivalent terms in multiple
ontologies, and devise a sustainable ontology mapping
service. Full details, including a link to the business case
document, can be found in IP3.
Please contact our business development team if you are
interested in contributing to this project.
Chemical Safety Library
The second positive business case to emerge from the batch of
four that were delivered in January focuses on the need to get
timely, relevant safety information to chemists (via their
ELNs) based on previous organisational experiences, possibly
also incorporating information shared by other organisations. With an excellent and experienced team in place and ready to
go, including project champion Ramesh Durvasula (BMS) and
project lead Dana Vanderwall (BMS), this project will be
managed by Gabrielle Whittick once it has raised enough funds
to get started. Full details can be found on IP3.
John and Carmen on our business development team would be
delighted to hear from you if you are able to help contribute
funds to make this project a reality.
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In Development
Standardised Data Warehouses
Ian Harrow has been commissioned to develop the business
case for the Standardised Data Warehouse concept, details of
which can be found in IP3. This business case is due to be
delivered in late April.
Ian would welcome your input during his work to research the
demand, value, and outline requirements for a common data
warehousing approach that could be flexible enough to
be reused in multiple settings and assist with easing the reliable
transfer of data between organisations.
Interactive Genome Analysis
Truly interactive genome analysis allows hypotheses to be
tested and verified in days rather than weeks, greatly
accelerating scientific research in the field of genomics.
At a recent lunchtime meeting on this subject led by Etzard
Stolte and John Wise, over 40 people attended from pharma,
technology and startup companies, academic institutes and
non-profits, and other alliances such as the Global Alliance for
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Genomics and Health.
The meeting concluded that we should look into running an
Interactive Genome Analysis Challenge so that we might, for a
given set of NGS analysis benchmark data and quality
parameters, understand the blueprint and costs of an optimal
setup. A prize would be offered for the best overall solution.
A community of interest is being established to define the
benchmark and establish the goals of the contest. Project
information can be found in IP3, or email John Wise for details.
Diary dates
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17th March 2015
Pistoia Alliance Debates webinar: Text-mining for pharma R&D in a
3.00pm-4.00pm (UK)
social world (register here)
18th-19th March 2015
ELIXIR Innovation & SME Forum Wageningen, The Netherlands
25th March 2015
Techonomy Bio Mountain View, CA (register here)
14th-15th April 2015
Paperless Lab Academy 2015 Barcelona, Spain
14th-15th April 2015
Pistoia Alliance Spring Conference 2015 Zurich, Switzerland (register
here)
21st-23rd April 2015
Bio-IT World Expo 2015 Boston, MA
22nd April 2015
Pistoia Alliance Networking Reception Boston, MA (register here)
5.30pm-7.30pm (EST)
21st-22nd October
BioData World Congress Cambridge, UK
2015
Check out all our project ideas and
contribute your own suggestions using
our project portfolio platform (IP3).
Keep up to date with our latest news,
opinions, updates, and webinar
recordings by visiting our blog.
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