For better access, the PMDG web site is now mirrored from its US home to a site in the UK.
The PMDG
Protein Modelling and Protein BioInformatics is an increasingly important discipline within the pharmaceutical, agrochemical, and biotechnology industries, as well as an important area of academic research and commercial software development. While other areas of molecular modelling, QSAR, and protein structure determination have their own specialist discussion groups, this fascinating but demanding area has had no dedicated forum for workers in the field to meet and discuss the subject. In order to remedy this imbalance, a discussion group has been established which will focus on protein sequence analysis, protein modelling, and structure-based design. The Protein Modelling Discussion Group, or PMDG for short, has been set up by two industrial scientists: Darren Flower at Astra Charnwood and John Overington at Pfizer Central Research.
If you are interested in knowing more, contact the organizers, Darren R Flower, Mansoor Saqi, John P Overington.
The PMDG is affiliated to the Molecular Graphics and Modelling Society as a special interest group. Special meetings with this and other relevant groups are anticipated.
The group's areas of interest include the following:
The PMDG should provide an opportunity to discuss general methodology, new approaches to old problems, experience with software, and to present case studies. The group will aim to draw its membership primarily from industry and academia in the UK and be aimed at molecular modellers, bioinformatics scientists, and methods developers; thus it will hopefully prove a useful interdisciplinary forum. The PMDG exists to serve members needs and to pursue commonly agreed objectives: the PMDG will be what you make it.
The first meeting of the Protein Modelling Discussion Group (PMDG) was held at Astra Charnwood in Loughborough on October 18 1995. The meeting was attended by around 40 research scientists from UK industry and academia. The meeting was hosted by Darren Flower, Department of Physical Chemistry and BioAnalysis, Astra Charnwood.
The meeting was opened by Dr Phil Marshall, kindly deputising for Dr David Payling - director of Physical Chemistry and BioAnalysis. Dr Marshall welcomed the delegates on behalf of Astra Charnwood and wished the group well. During the day a number of distinguished external speakers gave talks reflecting the growing importance of protein modelling, protein sequence analysis, and structure-based design in the pharmaceutical, agrochemical, and biotechnology industries. The first lecture was delivered by Dr Terri Attwood, a Royal Society research fellow presently working at UCL. Dr Attwood described PRINTS: a database of protein sequence motif fingerprints which she has developed. This excellent talk was followed by one of equal quality given by Dr Frank Blaney, of SmithKline Beecham pharmaceuticals, on the subject of modelling G- protein coupled receptors. Dr Mansoor Saqi, of Glaxo Wellcome, closed the morning session with a thought-provoking lecture on low complexity protein sequences and their occurrence in protein structures. After a lunch and poster session, the afternoon session started with a talk by Dr Alan Mills, of Birkbeck College, about a collaborative course on the principles of protein structure run on the World Wide Web (WWW). Continuing the INTERNET theme, Dr Peter Murray-Rust, of Glaxo Wellcome, gave a glimpse of the future integration of chemical and biological data resources on the Net and outlined a new collaborative WWW course on structure based design.
The second meeting of the Protein Modelling Discussion Group (PMDG- 2) took place on May 23rd 1996 at Glaxo Wellcome Medicines Research Centre. The local organisers were Mansoor Saqi and Pam Thomas. Speakers included Rob Russell (ICRF), John Overington (Pfizer), David Osguthorpe (Bath), Roger Sayle (Glaxo), David Kitson (MSI/Biosym), Mike Sternberg (ICRF), and David Parry-Smith (Pfizer). (Russell Viner had to pull out at short notice due to the birth of his latest infant (congratulations !) and Mike Sternberg stood in at very short notice (many thanks !).
The next meeting is scheduled to take place on Wednesday May 28th 1997 at the site of Pfizer (Sandwich, Kent). Local organisers will be David Parry-Smith and John Overington. Please register with John Overington by Wednesday 21st May, stating name, affiliation, special food requirements if any, and whether you need any pointers for overnight accomodation. As with all PMDG meetings, there is no registration fee; simply get yourself there.
A newsgroup listserver, called ipmdg-l, has been established for members of the PMDG. The list is hosted at Venus Internet; it is administered by Darren Flower, who set it up with the kind help and assistance of Alan Mills, formerly Birkbeck College, now running Venus Internet. It is hoped that this mailing list will allow communication of meetings and other information relevant to the group, and also provide a useful forum for general discussion.
Hyper-archives of the list traffic will be accessible at
http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/ipmdg-l/
To subscribe to the list send a message with the word subscribe in
the subject to
ipmdg-l-request@venus.co.uk
To unsubscribe to the list, send a message with the word unsubscribe
in the subject to
ipmdg-l-request@venus.co.uk
To post to the list subsequently, send messages to:
ipmdg-l@venus.co.uk
If you have any problems with use of the newsgroup, please send
email to: Darren.Flower@charnwood.gb.astra.com