Symposium a success

CERMM, the Centre for Research in Molecular Modeling, held its eighth annual symposium from April 25 to April 27 on the Loyola and SGW Campuses. 
It was attended by about 60 researchers and students, mainly from Quebec, Ontario and Alberta.

In her opening address, Vice-President (Research and Graduate Studies) Louise Dandurand stressed the steady growth of CERMM, which now comprises 22 members from seven institutions.

Director Gilles Peslherbe told The Journal, “The raison d'être of the CERMM symposium is to expose students and researchers to multidisciplinary research in computational chemistry, biology and physics. It is meant to constitute an integral part of our strategy for graduate education in the field by having students meet and talk with top-notch researchers in a relaxed atmosphere, and to help foster collaborations.

“A very good example of the latter happened at the poster session, where Peter Pawelek (Concordia) met with Nicolas Moitessier (McGill) in front of his poster and talked.

“Peter said later that their conversation was quite productive in that it may lead to a collaborative effort to use Moitessier’s docking program to predict the complexation of two proteins Peter is working on in his lab.”

The guest lecturer at the symposium was Dennis R. Salahub, of the University of Calgary.