Over the last few years there has been a lot of activity in the area of Open Source cheminformatics software. Being a contributor to the CDK as well as a supporter of Open Source and Open Data efforts in general, I was delighted to be given the chance to talk about these topics at the BioIT World Conference & Expo. I’ll be talking about the state of art in Open Source cheminformatics, highlighting the advantages and pitfalls of using this type of software, using examples from toolkits, workbenches, pipelining tools and so on. In addition, I’ll be talking a little bit about Open Data and it’s importance and the possibilities that arise from combining Open Source software and Open Data.

Here’s the announcement of the actual meeting:

Join the life sciences community in Boston, MA next April 27-29, 2009 for the 7th Annual Bio-IT World Conference & Expo (www.bio-itworldexpo.com).  Since its debut in 2002, Bio-IT has established itself as a premier event showcasing the myriad applications of IT and informatics to biomedical research and the drug discovery enterprise.  The 2009 program will feature best practice case studies and joint partner presentations relevant to the technologies, research, and regulatory issues of life science, pharmaceutical, clinical, health, and IT professionals.