News from Danish Proteomics Society

Publiceret Januar 2006

The proposal for establishing a Danish Proteomics Society was published in BioZoom no. 4, 2004. The Danish Proteomics Society (DAPSOC) was launched on Dec. 8, 2005 at a symposium at the University of Southern Denmark.

1.  The objectives of the Danish Proteomics Society (DAPSOC) are to:

  • Promote proteomics in the life sciences and biotechnology
  • Promote information exchange and collaborations between Danish proteomics and systems biology researchers
  • Organize an annual proteomics symposium and workshops
  • Disseminate information on proteomics education and training activities in Denmark.
  • Coordinate events with Nordic and international proteomics societies.
  • Represent Denmark in international organizations, e.g. EuPA and HUPO.

2. The first meeting of the DAPSOC steering committee was held on March 2, 2006 at the University of Southern Denmark.

Attending: ONJ, AS, TT, RL. (Chris Finnie was substitute for BS).

Apologies: NHH, SG

The statutes for DAPSOC are being prepared. It was decided to invite Jan Enghild (AU) and Thomas Litman (KU) to join the committee in order to have representatives from all major universities that practice proteomics research. Both Thomas Litman and Jan Enghild accepted.

Current DAPSOC steering committee members

  • Ole Nørregaard Jensen, Univ. Southern Denmark, jenseno@bmb.sdu.dk
  • Allan Stensballe, Univ. Aalborg, allan@stensballe.com
  • Birte Svensson, Technical Univ. of Denmark, bis@biocentrum.dtu.dk
  • Rene Lametsch, Royal Vet. Agric. Univ., rla@kvl.dk
  • Jan Enghild, Aarhus University, jje@mb.au.dk
  • Thomas Litman, Univ. Copenhagen , tlitman@binf.ku.dk
  • Niels H. Heegaard, Statens Serum Institute, nhe@ssi.dk
  • Thorsten Thormann, LEO Pharma, thorsten.thormann@leo-pharma.com
  • Steen Gammeltoft, Danish Biochemical Society, sg@dcb-glostrup.dk

Dissemination of information

Website:   www.dapsoc.dk and www.dapsoc.org are reserved for DAPSOC.

Email list:  A DAPSOC email list-server will be established (AS).

Membership

DAPSOC now has more than 75 registered members. New members can register at www.biokemi.org or contact secretary Vivian Juhl, Department of Clinical Biochemistry, Glostrup Hospital, Glostrup. Tel: 43232458. E-mail: vjb@dcb-glostrup.dk.

Past activities

The first DAPSOC Symposium ‘Phosphoproteomics and Cell Signaling‘ was held on Dec. 8, 2005, at the University of Southern Denmark.  More than 70 attendees from industry, academia and national laboratories were gathered for a full day symposium that featured international and Danish speakers. Dr. Albert Sickmann (Würzburg, D) presented novel proteomic strategies for the analysis of platelet membrane proteins and Dr. Jeroen Krijgsveld (Utrecht, NL) described mass spectrometry approaches for  quantitative proteomic analysis of the fruit fly and embryonic stem cells. In a fascinating closing lecture, Dr. Lars Juhl Jensen (EMBL, D) outlined current bioinformatics approaches to investigate protein interaction networks. Additional speakers were Drs. Blagoy Blagoev, Albrecht Gruhler, Thomas Kledal, Tia Sorsa, Majbrit Hjerrild and Martin R. Larsen. The excellent scientific presentations and the lively discussions among the delegates made this symposium a very successful kick-off event for DAPSOC. The support from more than 10 vendors was greatly appreciated.

Future DAPSOC activities

The next meeting of the steering committee is scheduled for August 22nd,2006.  Items for the meeting agenda should be submitted to Ole Nørregaard Jensen by August 15th.

The Second DAPSOC Symposium tentatively entitled ‘Analysis of protein complexes: Purification, interaction, dynamics’ is scheduled for December 5, 2006 at the University of Southern Denmark.

Candidate speakers are Bernhard Küster (Cellzome, D), Carol V. Robinson (Cambridge, UK), Hans Peter Braun (Univ. Hannover, D), Jens S. Andersen (SDU), Jonas Borch (Lund Univ), Thomas Jørgensen (SDU), Niels Heegaard (SSI), Søren Brunak (DTU).

Funding for the symposium will be discussed with Steen Gammeltoft, but it is expected that fees and exhibitors will cover a majority of the expenses.

Proposal to establish a young investigator network:  PhD students in Proteomics

The committee will draft a plan for this initiative that seeks to facilitate the in-formal communication and knowledge exchange between PhD-students from different groups and institutions.

International relations

Ole Nørregaard Jensen is currently representing DAPSOC in international organizations HUPO (www.hupo.org) and EuPA (http://www.swissproteomicsociety.org/eupa.html).

Upcoming seminars and meetings of interest in 2006:

  • April 24-25: Lecture by Dr. Forest M. White (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA): Quantitative Proteomic Analysis of Cellular Signaling Networks. University of Southern Denmark (24/4) and at Technical University of Denmark (25/5). See announcement at www.biokemi.org
  • May 28–June 1: 54th ASMS Conference on Mass spectrometry, Seattle, WA.
  • June 1-2: Systems Biology, Vejle, Denmark. Program and registration: www.biokemi.org
  • June 15: Bioimaging Symposium, University of Southern Denmark. Program: www.biokemi.org
  • Aug. 27–Sep. 1: 17th International Mass Spectrometry Conference, Prague, Czech Rep.
  • Sep. 3-7: 7th Siena Meeting: From genome to proteome: Back to the future.
  • Oct. 28 – Nov. 1: HUPO 5th World Congres, Long Beach, CA.
  • Dec. 5: 2nd DAPSOC Symposium: Analysis of protein complexes: Purification, interactions, dynamics
  • Dec. 10-11: Swedish Proteomics Society Symposium, Uppsala