I don't want to register yet, but keep me posted on the Benelux qPCR Symposium 2008

We are honoured to have professor Stephen Bustin (University of London, UK), professor Leendert Looijenga (Rotterdam, the Netherlands) and dr Filip Pattyn (Ghent, Belgium) as invited speakers. We believe the presence of these eminent speakers and authorities in the field will stimulate real-time PCR users to attend and actively participate to this unique one day symposium. Stephen Bustin will give an eloquent talk on quality assessment of real-time PCR experiments, Leendert Looijenga will introduce us in the fascinating world of non-coding RNAs, and Filip Pattyn will present a high-throughput primer design pipeline.

Upon careful reviewing of all contributed abstracts, the Scientific Committee selected 11 top ranking abstracts for oral communication.

We sincerely hope you will enjoy this program, and are looking forward to meet you in Ghent!

The awards and prices that can be won during the Symposium, can be found here

9:00 - 9:30	Registration and coffee
	Opening presentation
	Jo Vandesompele, Center for Medical Genetics Ghent
	Session 1: Optimization & Validation
9:30 - 10:00	Essential precepts for unambigous qPCR data reporting
	Stephen Bustin, Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry, London, UK (invited speaker)
10:00 - 10:20	Requirements and Criteria for Optimization and Validation of Real-Time PCR assays
	Marijke Raymaekers, Virga Jesse Hospital, Hasselt
10:20 - 10:40	Development of a consistent protocol for qPCR analysis in azalea flowers
	Ellen De Keyser, Institute for Agricultural and Fisheries Research, Melle
10:40 - 11:00	Accuracy of sodium bisulphite conversion and real-time PCR for quantitative DNA methylation analysis
	Ilse Van der Auwera, University of Antwerp
11:00 - 11:30	Coffee break, booth visit
	Session 2: Biomarkers
11:30 - 11:50	Prognostic multigene expression classification of neuroblastoma patients, a SIOPEN study
	Joëlle Vermeulen, Ghent University
11:50 - 12:10	Application of realtime RT-QPCR to develop new biomarkers for soil quality assessment
	Muriël de Boer, VU University Amsterdam
12:10 - 12:30	Gene expression profiles of antioxidative enzymes and related miRNAs as a tool to identify metal-specific effects in A. thaliana
	Karen Smeets, Hasselt University
12:30 - 14:00	Lunch, poster session, booth visit, lead sponsor talks
13:00 - 13:15	New developments as answer to new challenges in Life Science
	Katrien Royackers, Roche
13:15 - 13:30	The new way to study Gene Expression
	Nathalie Bernard, Applied Biosystems
13:30 - 13:45	CFX96TM – How to design an instrument for the way researchers work
	Marcus Neusser, Bio-Rad Laboratories
	Session 3: Technical advancements
14:00 - 14:30	Towards understanding the role of miRNAs in normal and malignant germ cell development
	Leendert Looijenga, Rotterdam, the Netherlands (invited speaker)
14:30 - 14:50	Quantitative multiplex detection of plant pathogens using a novel ligation probe-based system coupled with universal, high-throughput real-time PCR on OpenArrays
	Ronald van Doorn, Plant Research International, Wageningen
14:50 - 15:10	Significant difference or artefact of the method? The impact of thermocycler performance on results
	Mary Span, Cyclertest, Landgraaf
15:10 - 15:30	Stem-loop RT-PCR miRNA expression profiling using minute amounts of input RNA
	Pieter Mestdagh, Ghent University
15:30 - 16:00	Coffee break, booth visit
	Session 4: Bioinformatics
16:00 - 16:20	Amplification efficiency: linking baseline and bias in the analysis of quantitative PCR data
	Jan Ruijter, Academic Medical Center, Amsterdam
16:20 - 16:40	Discovery of noise-tolerant cancer specific biomarkers
	Luc Dehaspe, Oncomethylome Sciences, Leuven
16:40 - 17:00	High-throughput primer design and in silico assay validation
	Filip Pattyn, Ghent University (invited speaker)
17:00 - 17:15	Closure and awards
17:15 - 18:00	Drinks (sponsored by Bio-Rad)