An ambitious EC-funded research initiative on epigenetics advancing towards systems biology

WP9 EpiGeneSys Website & Protocols Database:

The EpiGeneSys website aims to become the main virtual contact point for scientists from the fields of epigenetics and systems biology. Interaction with the research community is encouraged via the "Ask a question" feature, whose responses are arranged into a useful FAQ section. Job advertisements and workshop/conference information is another popular feature available on the website; researchers are encouraged to submit listings, and now have the capability to do so themselves with additional functionalities built into the website. Interested researchers can subscribe to a newsletter, which is regularly disseminated via the website.

EpiGeneSys aims to serve the community as a whole and will foster excellent research through the dissemination of reliable methods. The collection of protocols is a popular website feature and serves the epigenetics research community—fulfilling a main goal of the network—to be a source of useful and relevant information to researchers worldwide; it has been extended to include computational and mathematical methods. Protocols on the website are selected, solicited and reviewed by EpiGeneSys members and are supplied with reviewer comments.

WP9 EpiGeneSys: Science In Society

It is a significant challenge for a Network of Excellence to contribute to greater transparency and improved communication of scientific research and its implications for the health and future of all Europeans. Epigenetics, especially in the cross-disciplinary context of systems biology, is particularly complex; therefore the network has planned several activities in order to make science accessible. The "EpiGeneSys and You" section of the website is aimed at a general public, offers articles about epigenetics and systems biology in layman's language. EpiGeneSys Resident Artist, Paul Liam Harrison from the College of Art and Design at the University of Dundee, spans the disciplines of art and science and explores methods of visual representation. Workshops on art & science produce a wealth of ideas and material, feeding into a series of travelling art exhibitions, which will be launched with a first event in Paris in 2014.

1^st Annual Meeting in Vienna, November 2011