Bioinformatics peak body committee elected

Bioinformatics Australia, Australia's peak body for bioinformatics, hosted by industry organisation AusBiotech, has announced its newly elected committee.

Bioinformatics Australia (BA) was created in 2004 by the merger of AusBiotech's bioinformatics special interest group and the Australian Association for Bioinformatics, to advise on bioinformatics in Australia and to steer a course through bioinformatics research, education and commercialisation.

Until now, it was run by a caretaker committee, which set BA's initial course before handing over to a formally elected committee this week.

The committee comprises:

• Catherine Abbott (senior lecturer, the University of Adelaide)
• Jonathan Arthur (formerly of Proteome Systems, now sesqui lecturer in bioinformatics within Sydney University's Faculty of Medicine)
• Phoebe Chen (associate professor at the School of Information Technology, Faculty of Science and Technology, Deakin University)
• Mark Crowe (formerly with IMB, now bioinformatician at Genetic Solutions, Brisbane)
• Bruno Gaeta (senior lecturer, University of NSW)
• Dominique Gorse (director of informatics and co-founder, Bio-Layer, Brisbane)
• Annette McGrath (bioinformatics manager, Australian Genome Research Facility)
• Michael Poidinger (former head of ANGIS, now bioinformatics research manager, Johnson & Johnson Research)
• Rohan Teasdale (senior research fellow, Institute for Molecular Bioscience, University of Queensland)

Committee member Jonathan Arthur said the impetus for Bioinformatics Australia had been stepped up when the Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology -- the world's largest bioinformatics conference -- was held in Brisbane in 2003. It was the first time the event had been held down under -- "a sign that things were starting to mature here," Arthur said.

Arthur admitted that bioinformatics -- like biotechnology -- was hard to define. He said BA took a broad definition of bioinformatics, as the application of information technology to the organisation, management and analysis of life science data. "[Bioinformatics] is a small community in Australia," he said. "What we're trying to do is take the broadest definition and be open to a broader range of opportunities."

Arthur said BA's affiliation with AusBiotech was vital, as it gave the fledgling organisation access to a legal and administrative infrastructure. "It makes it possible for us to move forward," he said.

BA holds its first workshop, 'Bioinformatics Enabling the Life Sciences', in Adelaide on September 25, as a satellite to the ComBio meeting.

For more information about Bioinformatics Australia: www.ausbiotech.org