Things to check out at Bionetics 2010

Bionetics 2010 kicks off tomorrow morning in Boston.  This is a great conference for nanonetworking people, with lots of interesting presentations.  I would just like to highlight a few:

• [Keynote talk] Radhika Nagpal (Harvard U.), Bio-inspired networks: Sensors, actuators, and cells, Dec. 1, 9:30-10:30.

• Michael Moore (Osaka U.) et al., "Measuring distance with molecular communication feedback protocols," Dec. 1, 11:00-12:30 (last paper in session).

• Nariman Farsad (York U.) et al., "Information rates of active propagation in microchannel molecular communication," Dec. 1, 2:00-3:40 (first paper in session).

• Tadashi Nakano (Osaka U.) et al., "Interfacing living cells via molecular communication," Dec. 1, 2:00-3:40 (second paper in session).

Hope to see you in Boston.

Featured Paper: Molecular Relay Channels

Molecular relay channels are discussed in a recently published paper by Prof. Tadashi Nakano of Osaka University, and Dr. Jian-Qin Liu of the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology, Japan.  The paper studies these channels from an information-theoretic perspective; the goal is to understand a particular form of molecular communication channels in terms of "bits". In the authors' model, the transmitter releases signals based on a bit sequence, the environment (channels) propagates the signals, and the reciever senses the channels to decode the bit sequence. Computer simulations are used to investigate the impact of various model parameters on the amount of information transmitted from the sender to the receiver.

T. Nakano and J. Q. Liu, "Design and analysis of molecular relay channels: An information theoretic approach," IEEE Transactions on Nanobioscience, vol. 9, no. 3, pp. 213-221, 2010. [IEEEXplore]

New Nanonetworks Executive Committee

Announcing the new executive committee of the IEEE ComSoc Emerging Technical Subcommittee on Nanoscale, Molecular, and Quantum Networking:

Chair: Andrew W. Eckford is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, York University.  A graduate of the Royal Military College of Canada and the University of Toronto, he has written numerous papers on the application of information theory to molecular communication, including its application to microfluidic and lab-on-chip systems. He holds an adjunct professorship at the University of Toronto.

Vice-chair (Standards liaison): Stephen F. Bush is a researcher in Algorithmic Communications Network Theory at the GE Global Research Center. In the nanoscale networking field, Steve's research focuses on networks formed by carbon nanotubes. He is the author of the recent book Nanoscale Communication Networks.

Vice-chair (Industrial liaison):  Sanjay Goel is an Associate Professor in the Information Technology Management Department at the University at Albany, SUNY.  He has written numerous papers on the topic of self-organization in nanonetworks, and was the TPC chair of the 2009 International ICST Conference on Nano-Networks.

Vice-chair (Region 10 liaison): Jian-Qin Liu is an expert researcher at National Institute of Information and Communications Technology, Japan. He received his Ph.D. degree in control science and engineering from Central South University, China, in 1997 and his Ph.D. degree in informatics from Kyoto University, Japan, in 2006. His research interests include new generation networks, bioinformatics, and nanotechnology. He is the first/sole author of three books, of which the latest is Biomolecular Computation for Bionanotechnology, and more than 40 papers published in academic journals.

Vice-chair (Awards liaison): Michael J. Moore is a researcher at Osaka University. He is a noted expert on molecular communication, having co-authored the fundamental paper in the field. He has recently published papers related to estimation and information theory in molecular communication systems.

Vice-chair (Senior advisor): Tatsuya Suda is among a few researchers who initiated research in molecular communication.  He has co-authored many of the foundational papers in the field.   He has also made significant research contributions in the areas of high speed networks.   The positions he holds and has held include the President of the University Netgroup, Inc., a Professor in the School of Information and Computer Science at the University of California, Irvine, a Program Director at the National Science Foundation, and a number of visiting research positions.  IEEE Fellow.

Researcher Profile: Thomas Schneider

Dr. Thomas Schneider is a Research Scientist and Senior Investigator at the National Institutes for Health, in Frederick, MD. Tom is widely known for his work in molecular information theory, which views molecular operations on DNA and RNA through the lens of bits and entropies.

Tom received a BS in biology from MIT, following in the footsteps of his father (as well as Claude Shannon, the father of information theory). He then completed his Ph.D. in molecular biology at the University of Colorado, Boulder. It was during his Ph.D. that he first got the concept that the information in a protein binding site on DNA evolves to match the information needed to locate the sites in the genome.

Among Tom's many contributions is an intuitive tool, called the sequence logo, to help visualize the amount of information processed during protein binding. He has since expanded his work to consider the relationship between energy and information in biological systems. Tom's most recent work shows the remarkable result that the energy efficiency of certain biomolecular mechanisms can be explained using results from information theory.

Tom's current home page and contact information are here.