Agilent Technologies is fostering integrated, whole-systems approaches to biological research through two $75,000 grants. The application deadline is August 12, 2011. Funds will support academic or nonprofit research projects covering the development of open source Agilent-compatible software tools for integrating data from different omics platforms—genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics.

This looks like an interesting and relevant webinar for anyone receiving federal funding for genetics projects.

Genetic Alliance is a nonprofit health advocacy organization that improves health through the authentic engagement of communities and individuals. This year, they are celebrating their 25th anniversary, and they're hosting a variety of events throughout the year, including monthly salons around the country and the 25th Anniversary Annual Conference in June.

After finishing the final revisions on my dissertation I was reminded of this spot-on graphical guide to what a Ph.D. is really all about. Now that I'm finished, I'm leaving Vanderbilt to start a postdoc in genetic epidemiology with Dr. Loic Le Marchand at the University of Hawaii Cancer Center. Posts may be sparse over the next few weeks, but I plan on blogging as usual once I'm set up at my postdoc.

When I started grad school I started using Reference Manager (RefMan), similar to EndNote, to manage my references and bibliographies. It's a real pain, and I often feel like I'm powering my computer with the endless pumping and clicking of the mouse that it takes to import a reference into my library. Recently I've started using Zotero because of how easy it is to import references, store PDFs, and sync between computers.

On Friday, December 3rd, at 8:00 AM, after copious amounts of coffee, my friend, colleague, and perpetual workout buddy Stephen Turner will defend his thesis. Join us in room 206 of the Preston Research Building at Vanderbilt Medical Center for the auspicious occasion!Getting Genetics Done by Stephen Turner is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) License.

Human Genetics / Biostatistics Associate Professor (and my first statistics teacher) Dr. Chun Li will be giving a talk Wednesday on a new measure of R² for continuous, binary, ordinal, and survival outcomes.

As this year's ASHG meeting starts to wind down be sure to check out Variable Genome where Larry Parnell is summarizing what's going on at the talks he's been to. Also see the commentary on Genetic Inference by Luke Jostins. The 1000 Genomes tutorial from Wednesday night will be made available on genome.gov soon, and the presidential address, plenary sessions, and distinguished speaker symposium talks were recorded and will also soon be online.

Seminar announcement for Vanderbilt folks: Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center Quantitative Sciences Seminar Series Presents Reproducible Research in the Omics Era: A Presentation and Panel Discussion Kevin R. Coombes, PhD Deputy Chair, Bioinformatics, and Professor of Bioinformatics and Computational BiologyM.D. Anderson Cancer Center and Keith Baggerly, PhD Associate Professor, Dept.

Pacific Biosciences is hosting a reception and dinner, and is screening their film The New Biology at this year's ASHG meeting.