At MANA 2019, we are allocating time within the session schedule for special interest groups and others to gather for "Interactive Forums" or workshops on Friday 11/15 at 2:50 PM - 4:10 PM and Saturday 11/16 at 11:10 AM-12:30 PM.
These "Interactive Forums" are somewhat like "workshops", though they are are truly meant for "work" - to help to shape the course of the field of metabolomics. We hope that by building this time in as an integral part of the schedule we will help to engage the leaders of different metabolomics subdisciplines and research foci on the big problems in their fields. There will be multiple parallel meetings taking different forms (roundtable discussion, roadmapping, etc.) as needed for different focus areas. Please joining us in working to move the field of metabolomics forward in North America!
Below are the planned sessions:
Career Development Forum: "Taking Ownership of Your Career: Identifying Your Transferrable Skills"
Designed by, organized by, run by, and tailored to the early-career members of MANA (less than 10 years past their last degree). Featuring discussion of topics critical to career development for trainees and other early-career members.
Compound ID and Quantum Mechanical Computation
Identification of unknown compounds is a grand challenge in metabolomics, and recent support from the United States NIH aims to help advance this critically important research area. This forum will involve leadership of some of those NIH-funded core facilities as well as any other scientists interested in helping to tackle the challenge of compound identification.
Lipidomics
While there are many scientific and technical aspects that lipidomics and metabolomics share, there are also some key differences that make lipidomics a unique discipline with some of its own unique needs. This workshop will be a forum for lipidomics researchers to identify and discuss those needs and the best ways forward in addressing them.
Microbiome
The gut microbiome plays a critical role in human health and disease; research in this field is rapidly moving and is ripe for interaction with metabolomics. This forum will include discussion of NIST’s microbiome efforts, the shortcomings of metagenomics measurements in defining a ‘Healthy Gut Microbiome, and the potential power of metabolomics in unlocking the functions of microbiome in health and disease.
mQACC
Quality assurance and quality control processes are critical for reproducible metabolomics science. This workshop will present and discuss recent progress from the metabolomics Quality Assurance and quality Control Consortium (mQACC), featuring interactive audience voting on best practices and priorities, along with discussion of those same topics.
SODA (Software and Data) Exchange
The MANA software group is putting together SODA: a Software and Data Exchange resource. Our goal is to provide a community-driven list of currently maintained software and test datasets used for software bench-marking. This resource will help researchers new to metabolomics and experts alike. This workshop will present current SODA efforts, and will include ample time for discussion and input from the community to further drive this effort forward. BYOS (Bring Your Own Software)!