1. Structural Bioinformatics Seminar Prof. Haim J. Wolfson1 How to present a lecture in Bioinformatics (an informal guide) Haim J. Wolfson School of Computer Science Tel Aviv University

2. Structural Bioinformatics Seminar Prof. Haim J. Wolfson2 Disclaimer Bioinformatics audience might be very diverse. The following assumes presentation of an algorithm/s to a computationally inclined audience.

3. Structural Bioinformatics Seminar Prof. Haim J. Wolfson3 Introduction Start with the topic and papers to be presented (full citation of authors, title, journal). Give BIOLOGICAL MOTIVATION for the task. Why is it important for biologists to solve this problem ? Cite biological literature dealing with the motivation.

4. Structural Bioinformatics Seminar Prof. Haim J. Wolfson4 Introduction (continued) Present the mathematical/computer science model of the biological problem. Give CS background of the task. Was it tackled before in a different application ? Is there a known efficient (polynomial) algorithm ? Was it proven to be NP- complete/hard ? Cite CS literature dealing with the problem.

5. Structural Bioinformatics Seminar Prof. Haim J. Wolfson5 Algorithm Presentation Present the algorithm. What is the main novel idea behind this algorithm ? How does it advance the state of the art compared to the previously known algorithms ? Analyze performance in general and on biological examples in particular. Analyze complexity and applicability to large scale biological applications.

6. Structural Bioinformatics Seminar Prof. Haim J. Wolfson6 Experimental Results Present applications of the algorithm on “ real ” biological examples. Analyze experimental performance. How does it compare to the theoretically expected performance ? How does the performance compare with the performance of other algorithms developed for the same task ?

7. Structural Bioinformatics Seminar Prof. Haim J. Wolfson7 Future Developments Discuss possible extensions of the methodology to tackle more difficult tasks. Is there a need for a different methodology ?

8. Structural Bioinformatics Seminar Prof. Haim J. Wolfson8 Conclusions Summarize the main points of your presentation. What is the “ take home ” message of your lecture ?