Dear Colleagues

     Every year, about one hundred researchers and young students participate in a seminar and communicate with each other between presentations, with posters (about one hundred). The participants enjoy discussion about scientific dreams until late at night.

     In the case of one of the extremely thermophilic model organisms, Thermus thermophilus HB8, the three-dimensional structures of 22 % of 2,200 proteins have already been determined. Furthermore, membrane and multi-subunit proteins have been subjected to three-dimensional structural analyses. In parallel with this, systems-biological researches are now in progress (http://www.thermus.org ; http://www.brc.riken.jp/lab/dna/en/thermus_en.html). Because functionally-unknown proteins are included in the intended system-biological researches, genome-wide analyses (transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, imaging, etc.) have also been performed for predicting their functions. Their predicted functions are confirmed by respective functional analyses. Each model organism has its characteristic and contributes to our research.

     In this seminar, researchers in various fields and students will join every year.
 1) Model organism research
 2) Systems biological research (including the genome-wide analytical methods, such as transcriptomics (mRNA analysis), proteomics (protein expression), metabolomics (metabolites), etc.)
 3) Imaging methods in system biological research
 4) Development of new method for functional or structural analysis
 5) Detailed functional and structural analyses on each molecule