February Minutes

Minutes
Thursday February 13, 2003
2:00 - 3:30 pm
EPS, Room 8101

Present: Andrew Bergen, Mitchell Gail, Patricia Hartge, Marianne Henderson, Chitra Mohla, Thomas O'Brien, Philip Rosenberg, Arthur Schatzkin

The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the mission of the EpiInformatics Working Group and define the activities that the group would pursue.

The following points were discussed:

The original name of the group "Bioinformatics for Epidemiology and Genetics Working Group" was changed to "EpiInformatics: A DCEG Working Group". It was felt that the mission of the group was to look at informatics from the perspective of Epidemiology. Informatics as it pertains to Epidemiology is distinctly different from the Bioinformatics needs of other disciplines.
The mission statement was discussed. It was again emphasized that the informatics needs of epidemiology are distinct and the mission statement should emphasize the unique nature of these requirements.
The statement was rewritten as follows:
"Modern molecular epidemiological studies of cancer pose enormous informatics challenges. EpiInformatics: a DCEG working group stimulates research and development in informatics for population based discovery of the causes of cancer".
There was active discussion about liaison with other informatics groups. It was felt that it would be good to establish a dialogue with the following groups:

Liaison between DCEG EpiInformatics & other groups intereseted in Bioinformatics
Group	Contact	DCEG Liaison
CIT	Peter Munson
Bioinformatics Faculty	John Weinstein	Mitchell Gail, Chitra Mohla and other DCEG members
NCICB	Ken Buetow, SAIC
DCT	Rich Simon
CCR	John Weinstein	Mitchell Gail
EpiInformatics
ABCC (Frederick)	CGF, Robert Stevens

Round table ideas: It was decided Mitch and Arthur will suggest four speakers and select a topic.
Journal Club: Phil will send dates and topics of upcoming journal club meetings to Chitra. The feasibility of inviting outside groups to these sessions was debated.
Upcoming Events: The members were requested to submit upcoming Informatics events/meetings to Chitra. The following were some of the events mentioned:
- Bioinformatics Faculty Retreat for 2003 (October or November)
- NIH Research Festival in the Fall
- Cambridge Biotech Course in Genomics (September)