BMC Bioinformatics Special Issue: CALL FOR PAPERS

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A special issue of the Journal will showcase original

papers that address themes relevant to the:

Annotation, Interpretation and Management of Mutations
http://www.ebi.ac.uk/Rebholz-srv/aimm.html


Mutations play a key role in the understanding of genetic mechanisms

and complex diseases. A number of bioinformatics initiatives gather

and store mutational relevant information (OMIM, GAD, HapMap, 1000

Genomces project, COSMIC, UniProtKb, PDB), but the challenge for

data integration initiatives is to facilitate the interpretion

of phenotypic / impact changes induced by the mutations. Solutions are

required in the domains of:



(i) text mining - for the identification of phenotypic / impact

annotations,

(ii) data warehousing and machine learning – to allow better

integration of mutation relevant information into a bioinformatics

infrastructure (e.g., ontologies, workflows, databases, machine

learning techniques). Synergistic use of these technologies should

facilitate inferences of knowledge from sequence to structure to

function and to phenotypes. Authors may also focus on methods for

the prediction of phenotypic effects induced by mutations,

infrastructure to support clinical decision processes involving

mutations as well as the management and aggregation of mutations

with annotations from different digital or text resources.



Suggested themes (but not limted to):



- Mutation Databases and Metadata: Design, Content, Accuracy.

- Extraction of mutations and annotations from literature

- Methods and systems for predicting the impacts of Mutations

- Mutation Data Integration, Phenotype Ontologies, Semantic Support

and Reuse



Published manuscripts will include a clear and motivating description

of the specific challenge and biological context that they address

and a lucid illustration of the proposed solution.



Article-processing charges:

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Please note that the standard BMC Bioinformatics publication

processing fees apply to submissions to this special issue.

Please refer to http://www.biomedcentral.com/bmcbioinformatics/ifora/

for further information.



Important Dates:

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Submissions open: Dec 25th 2008

Submissions due*: February 14th 2009

Revised manuscript submitted: March 31st 2009



Submissions:

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Pre-submission enquiries and variations to the deadlines above may be

made in consultation with the Special Issue Editor bakerc@unb.ca



* Author instructions can be obtained by sending an email to

bmcmutations@gmail.com an automated reply will sent and

complete submissions should also be sent to

bmcmutations@gmail.com but with AIMM in the subject line.



Special Issue Editors:

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Christopher J. O. Baker - University of New Brunswick, Canada

Dietrich Rebholz-Schuhmann, European Bioinformatics Institute, UK