Introduction: Our bioinformatics website, bioafrica.net, celebrates its 10th birthday in 2011 and we have organized a great program to celebrate this milestone with the production of new bioinformatics software applications and genetic databases and the organization of lectures, meetings and, of course, some good parties...

www.bioafrica.net 10 years anniversary objectives and activities!



This is our website’s 10th anniversary, so we are really enthusiastic about this year and working on lots of positive developments. Our main objective is to create knowledge of viral epidemics affecting Africa and to develop open source and free bioinformatics software applications and databases.

One of our main aims for 2011 is for users and collaborators to become more involved in the website. We would like you to help us to develop a truly collaborative site where information is accurate and up-to-date so our tools and databases become more useful for research and the implementation of prevention and treatment programmes affecting human health in Africa. For that purpose, we will be creating feedback forms on all webpages and you are welcome to email us with suggestions for any of our fourteen bioinformatics applications and three viral genetic databases.

We are also expanding our collaborative networks. For example, we currently co-direct the Southern African Treatment and Resistance Network (SATuRN), which includes researchers and physicians. SATuRN aims to comprehensively trace drug resistance levels in the region and implement bioinformatics databases and tools for the clinical management of patients failing antiretroviral therapy (ART). This is an interesting and valuable project merging high-level research with delivery of care to the many patients failing ART in South Africa and neighboring countries. This project is producing truly exciting results and we will release a report on the ART drug resistance levels in the region in April. This report aims to support the World Health Organization (WHO) objectives in 2011, which are to bring attention to the subject of microbial resistance and to inform research and public health officials. We will also continue to build capacity among clinicians on the use of resistance genotyping for clinical management via workshops and clinical meetings. Please visit our SATuRN section of the website for further information.

On the bioinformatics side, we plan to publish and release a new web-based bioinformatics software application with Prof. Olivier Gascuel’s team from Montpellier, a drug resistance mutation detection tool with Dr. Robert Gifford at the Aaron Diamond Institute, a new version of our popular REGA Subtyping tools with Anne-Mieke Vandame and Koen Deforche’s team and to expand the functionalities of the RNA Virus Database with Oxford and Edinburgh colleagues.

We are also organizing a few parties and meetings to engage with our collaborators and friends to celebrate our successful past and present. However, our real objective for 2011 is to keep enjoying our work, as we do every day, and to bring knowledge and enthusiasm to the viral bioinformatics field with the production of open access publications and open source software applications…

Please join us for our 10th anniversary celebrations and help us to keep developing a successful and popular bioinformatics website in Africa!

Tulio de Oliveira, Sharon Cassol and the bioafrica.net team.
Dates
 Meetings, lectures, training activities and parties!

January 31 to February 2, 2011
(9am to 5pm)
Africa Centre, South Africa.
Meeting - HIV Drug Resistance and Clinical Management mini-workshop. We are hosting a team from the Botswana Health Department, Botswana/Harvard Partnership and the University of Pretoria at the Africa Centre. We plan to discuss the development and implementation of failure management clinics as well the analysis of resistance data.

February 4, 2011
(8pm to late)
Riverview, South Africa.
Party - “Half way to 70”, super funk party at Mtubatuba. This will officially start our celebrations with our colleagues from the Africa Centre for Health and Population Studies. This is a fancy dress party and we hope to release some pictures after the party, if our colleagues allow us! ;-)

June 7-10, 2011
(8am to 7pm)
Durban, South Africa.
Conference & Workshop - 5th SA AIDS Conference – International Convention Center (ICC), Durban, South Africa. We are finalizing the organization of an HIV Antiretroviral (ARV) Drug Resistance and Clinical Management workshop as a satellite meeting. We will also be presenting a number of posters and papers; more information will be posted here.

June 8, 2011
(7pm to late)
Durban, South Africa.
Party - Celebration 10 years at bioafrica's original city: Durban, South Africa. We are organizing a great party with on the 8 June 2011 (Wednesday), more information will follow, but please book it in your diary!

26-28 October, 2011
(8am to 5pm)
Gaborone, Botswana.
Conference & Workshop- 6th South African HIV Drug Resistance and Treatment Monitoring Workshop is most likely to be presented in Gaborone, Botswana from 26 to 28 October 2011. As part of the 10th year celebration of bioafrica.net we will give a lifetime-award to Prof. Sharon Cassol for her 28 years of scientific achievements in the fields of HIV virology, immunology and laboratory testing. We had also confirmed participation of top presenters in the field, including Professors Robert Shafer, Anne-Mieke Vandamme and Deenan Pillay in this year workshop. More information will follow at the SATuRN section of our website.



Special Thanks to:



Bioafrica.net would like to thanks our collaborators and funders. Without your support we would never be celebrating this 10th year anniversary!

Special thanks to: Amilcar Tanuri, Ana Abecasis, Andrew Rambaut, Anne-Mieke Vandamme, Anthea Van Blerk, Astrid Treffry-Goatley, Bernardo Gavão-Castro, Chris Seebregts, Christina Zarowsky, Cloete van Vuuren, Craig Douman, David Katzenstein, Deenan Pillay, Dewald Steyn, Dimitris Pavareskevis, Dominique Goedhals, Edana Cassol, Francois Chevenet, Justen Manasa, Koen Deforche, Luiz Carlos Alcantara, Lynn Morris, Marco Salemi, Marie-Louise Newell, Massimo Ciccozzi, Michael McGrath, Michelle Gordon, Oliver Pybus, Olivier Gascuel, Patrick Charls, Philippe Le Mercier, Pieter Libin, Rami Kantor, Ricardo Camacho, Richard Lessells, Robert Belshaw, Robert Gifford, Robert Shafer, Ryan Doherty, Sharon Cassol, Siva Danivah, Soo-Yon Rhee, Stephane Hue, Susan Engelbretch, Suzanna Lamers, Theresa Rossouw, Thumbi Ndung'u, Tommy Liu, Walter Fitch, Wolfgang Preiser, Ziad El-Khatib.

Funded by: No direct grant funds the development of bioafrica.net. All research funds were specifically for our research and/or bioinformatics resources, such as the Rega HIV-1 subtyping tool, SATuRN databases, HIV proteomics resource and the RNA Virus Database. Research agencies that indirectly helped fund the development of our website include: the CNRS (France), the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), the European Union (EU), Flanders Bi-lateral collaboration, the EU Marie-Curie activities, the South African Medical Research Council (MRC), the Swiss South African Joint Research Programme (SSJRP), the Center for Disease Control (CDC), U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and the Wellcome Trust. We would like to thank all our funders for their generous contributions.

The views and opinions expressed here are not necessarily those of bioafrica.net’s collaborators (see thanks section) or any funding agency listed.
The developers of bioafrica.net (Dr. Tulio de Oliveira & Prof. Sharon Cassol) are fully responsible for the website’s content.