Description of   "BDQ Young Scientist Poster Awards"

The new open access journal Biomolecular Detection and Quantification (BDQ) is proud to sponsor three "BDQ Young Scientist Poster Awards" at the qPCR & NGS 2015 event.

The posters will be evaluated by an international jury on the basis of originality of the approach; quality of the work (e.g. appropriate methodology, interpretation of results, conclusiveness); quality of the presentation (e.g. clarity, response to questions); and self-reliance and independence (not one of co-authors, but the most active, if more than one author).

Eligible for the BDQ Young Scientist Poster Award:     The contest is open to students and early career scientists.

Award Presentation:     BDQ Editor-in-Chief Stephen Bustin will award the three poster prizes on Wednesday afternoon directly after the lunch break March 25, 2015.

1. BDQ Young Scientist Poster Award - First Prize
   The winner is awarded 700 Euros and a free submission to BDQ
   
   
2. BDQ Young Scientist Poster Award – Second Prize
   The winner is awarded 200 Euros and a free submission to BDQ
   
   
3. BDQ Young Scientist Poster Award – Third Prize
   The winner is awarded 100 Euros and a free submission to BDQ

Procedure for Application
Authors will be able to express their interest in participating in the BDQ Young Scientist Poster Award contest when submitting their abstract. Note that authors are only able to participate if their paper has been selected as a poster by the conference organizer.
Please register and submit your abstract using the Internet based ConfTool registration and submission platform => Registration.qPCR-NGS-2015.net

• PCR in less than 30 seconds: Efficient, specific amplification with increased primer and polymerase.
  Carl T Wittwer; University of Utah, United States of America
• Digital PLA  (Proximity Ligation Assay)
  Stephen Bustin; Anglia Ruskin University, Chelmsford, Essex, United Kingdom
• Next-Generation RNA-Seq.
  Gary Schroth; Illumina, United States of America
• How could digital PCR benefit clinical analysis?
  Jim Francis Huggett; LGC, United Kingdom
• Updated evaluation of quantitative miRNA expression platforms in the microRNA quality control (miRQC) study.
  Jo Vandesompele; Ghent University on behalf of the microRNA quality control study consortium, Belgium
• Mass Spectrometry Based Draft Of The Human Proteome.
  Bernhard Küster; TU München, Freising Weihenstephan, Germany
• Next Generation Sequencing Applications to the study of human and animal Microbiomes.
  Karen E. Nelson, J. Craig Venter Institute, United States of America
• Expression Profiling of Circulating Tumor Cells: a Prognostic and Predictive Biomarker in Cancer.
  Mikael Kubista; TATAA Biocenter, Sweden
• Variability of the Reverse Transcription Step: Practical Implications.
  Tania Nolan; The Gene Team, United Kingdom
• Decoding lncRNA functions using high-throughput pathway perturbation.
  Pieter Mestdagh; Biogazelle, Belgium

Browse the conference agenda -- HTML version  AgendaHTML.qPCR-NGS-2015.net  and PDF version  AgendaPDF.qPCR-NGS-2015.net

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qPCR & NGS 2015 Talk and Poster Sessions

Main topic:   Advanced Molecular Diagnostics
This session is focusing on the application of highly sophisticated methods, application and algorithms to discover, detect, and validate molecular diagnostic markers. A special focus is lying on the integrative analysis of multi level biomarkers, e.g. microRNA – mRNA, integrative analysis of genomic, proteomic, metabolomic and phenotypic markers.

Main topic:   Biomarker Discovery
A session about the discovery, identification and validation of molecular biomarkers:  diagnostic, prognostic or therapeutic markers on DNA, RNA, microRNA or small RNA, metabolome and proteome level (e.g. disease markers, cancer or stem-cells markers, tissue specific markers, differentiation markers, methylation markers). New assay systems will be presented like high throughput proteomics (MS based proteome map), PLA (Proximity Ligation Assay) or PEA (Proximity Elongation Assay).

Main topic:   Next Generation Sequencing (NGS)
NGS applications offer new holistic analysis of any kind of nucleic acid, to investigate the Genome, Exome, Epigenome, Transcriptome and Splicome (total RNA, microRNA, small RNA Seq, long ncRNA), CHIP purified nucleic acids, etc.
Various NGS sub-sessions will be presented:
•    NGS overview talks - information technology in the era of NGS
•    Pre NGS - sample prep & setup & library generation
•    NGS – new sequencing technologies (e.g. single molecule and pore sequencing)
•    NGS – data analysis (data management, mapping, alignment algorithms, data de novo assembly )
•    NGS – diagnostic applications

MicroGenomics & Single-cells diagnostics
Focus is on micro-genomics, the application of molecular methods to detect biomarkers in a minimal amount of tissue or matrix. New applications in single-cell isolation, separation or characterisation technologies, laser micro dissection, isolating circulating tumour cells (CTC), pre-amplification techniques, sub-cellular PCR, micro-manipulation of cell clusters, cellular micro injection, , single-cell handling, FACS sorting and spotting.

Circulating Nucleic Acids
A new class of biomarkers are circulating nucleic acids (DNA, RNA, small RNAs, and long ncRNAs) which are free floating (?), bound to proteins or covered in micro-vesicles. One focus will be on exosome or micro-vesicles isolation, purification for bio-liquids, amount and size quantification, and characterisation techniques, including intra-cellular and membrane bound protein or lipid markers.

Molecular Diagnostics in Agriculture, Veterinary Medicine, Food & Environmental Science
This session is dedicated to molecular diagnostics in Life Science, with focus on Agriculture, Veterinary Medicine, and Environmental Science (which is the major research focus here at the TUM campus in Weihenstephan). All applications of highly sophisticated quantification methods, field application or algorithms to research the wide field of agro-veterinarian life science are very welcome.

MIQE & QM & Standardisation strategies in molecular diagnostics
This session is focusing on standardisation strategies and quality management in molecular diagnostics. The goal is to guarantee better and more valid results. Of special interest in the context of qPCR are the MIQE guidelines (minimum information for publication of quantitative real-time PCR experiments). Following these guidelines will encourage better experimental practice, allowing more reliable and unequivocal interpretation of qPCR results.

Digital PCR  &  Nano-fluidics
Digital PCR (dPCR) can be used to directly quantify and clonally amplify nucleic acids including DNA, cDNA, mRNA or microRNA. It allows a more reliable collection and highly sensitive measurement of nucleic acid amounts, applications in copy number variants, point mutations in molecular diagnostics.

Non-coding RNAs -- microRNA, small RNAs, long non-coding RNAs
This session is dedicated to the family of non-coding RNA and its RNAi mechanism and applications:  extraction of non-coding RNAs, RT-qPCR technologies to detect microRNA, long-non coding RNAs and new classes of small RNAs, siRNA knock down applications, microRNA targets and microRNA precursors, new siRNA manipulation, etc.

qPCR Data Analysis -- BioStatistics & BioInformatics
The data analysis in RT-qPCR expression profiling experiments is still challenging and time consuming. From the literature it is well known, that a lot of error is introduced by wrong experimental study design, reference gene normalisation or qPCR data analysis. This session is focusing on useful algorithms and software applications for data mining, calculation of relative expression, primer and probe design for any kind of nucleic acid (mRNA, microRNA, piRNA), real-time PCR efficiency determination, mathematical modelling, multivariate expression profiling raw data analysis, statistics in real-time PCR, data management, multi-way expression profiling, multiple regression analysis, 3D data visualization, and much more!

Technical Lunch-Time Seminars:

• Agilent Technologies -- 2 talks
  
• Life Technologies -- 2 talks