Award Winners - ISMB 2014

Ian Lawson Van Touch Memorial Award
Outstanding Poster Award
F1000 Poster Award
RCSB PDB Poster Prize
Art & Science Award
Orienteering Winners

 

Ian Lawson Van Toch Memorial Award for Outstanding Student Paper

PP07 (PT) ExSPAnder: a Universal Repeat Resolver for DNA Fragment Assembly
Presenting author: Andrey D. Prjibelski, St. Petersburg Academic University, Russia

Additional authors:
Irina Vasilinetc, St. Petersburg Academic University, Russia
Anton Bankevich, St. Petersburg Academic University, Russia
Alexey Gurevich, St. Petersburg Academic University, Russia
Tatiana Krivosheeva, St. Petersburg Academic University, Russia
Sergey Nurk, St. Petersburg Academic University, Russia
Son Pham, University of California, San Diego, United States
Anton Korobeynikov, St. Petersburg Academic University, Russia
Alla Lapidus, St. Petersburg Academic University, Russia
Pavel Pevzner, University of California, San Diego, United States

Overview:

Next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies have raised a challenging de novo genome assembly problem that is further amplified in recently emerged single-cell sequencing projects. While various NGS assemblers can utilize information from several libraries of read-pairs, most of them were originally developed for a single library and do not fully benefit from multiple libraries. Moreover, most assemblers assume uniform read coverage, condition that does nothold for single-cell projects where utilization of read-pairs is even more challenging. We have developed an exSPAnder algorithm that accurately resolves repeats in the case of both single and multiple libraries of read-pairs in both standard and single-cell assembly projects.

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Outstanding Poster

Poster E14

Modeling complex patterns of differential DNA methylation that strongly associate with gene expression changes

 

Christopher Schlosberg, Washington University in St. Louis, United States Nathan VanderKraats, Washington University in St. Louis, United States
Jeffery Hiken, Washington University in St. Louis, United States
Kilian Weinberger, Washington University in St. Louis, United States
Tao Ju, Washington University in St. Louis, United States
John Edwards, Washington University in St. Louis, United States

 

Short Abstract:

Establishment of specific patterns of DNA methylation is necessary for normal development, and aberrant methylation is frequently observed in cancer. Hypermethylation of CpG islands overlapping the transcription start site (TSS) downregulates tumor suppressor genes, thus promoting tumorigenesis. However, recent genome-wide mapping of methylation indicates only modest correlation between differential gene expression (DGE) and methylation, casting doubt on the importance of methylation in regulating DGE. In addition, complex patterns, such as CpG island-shore methylation and long hypomethylated domains, also correlate with DGE. We hypothesize that unbiased computational tools will better model complex patterns of methylation and capture strong associations between DGE and methylation. By representing methylation as continuous curves centered on a gene’s TSS and performing unsupervised clustering using Dynamic Time Warping, we enumerate complex, differential methylation signatures that highly correlate with DGE. We next trained a nearest neighbor classifier on examples of these significantly correlated signatures to identify genes that display both differential methylation and expression. Using data from the Human Epigenome Atlas, ENCODE, and eight breast cancer cell lines, our classifier significantly outperforms state-of-the-art Differentially Methylated Region (DMR)- and Support Vector Machine-based methods at identifying associated genes. By further analyzing these associated genes, we find methylation’s silencing mechanism may be signature-dependent. In breast cancer cells, we observe that methylation at the TSS does not affect transcriptional initiation, however, methylation proximal to the TSS may inhibit transcriptional elongation. The discovery of these potentially functional methylation changes will facilitate the identification of patients who may benefit from clinically-approved demethylating therapeutics.

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F1000 Poster Awards

Poster B27

Discovering co-variation and co-exclusion patterns in compositional data from the human microbiome

Emma Schwager, Harvard School of Public Health, United States
Curtis Huttenhower Harvard School of Public Health, United States
Uri Weingart, Harvard School of Public Health, United States
Timothy Tickle, Harvard School of Public Health, United States
Xochitl Morgan, Harvard School of Public Health, United States
Curtis Huttenhower, Harvard School of Public Health, United States

Short Abstract: Background: Compositional data, or data constrained to sum to a constant total, occur in many scientific areas. The non-independence of such data causes spurious correlations when standard covariance measures are applied, regardless of the similarity measure used. This problem has not yet been addressed in a way that generalizes to different similarity measures, nor for the high-dimensional measurements typical of modern biological data, including data from microbial community studies.
Results: We developed an approach to provide appropriate p-values for varied similarity scores between compositional measurements, which we call Compositionality Corrected by PErmutation and REnormalization (CCREPE). We assessed the false positive rate of CCREPE using synthetic datasets modeling a variety of realistic community structures, as well as comparing its performance and behavior with existing methods. We observed that CCREPE performs better in communities with greater evenness than in more skewed communities. We further applied the CCREPE procedure using a novel ecologically-targeted similarity score (the N-dimensional Checkerboard score) to 682 metagenomes from the Human Microbiome Project to determine significant co-variation patterns while avoiding spurious correlation from compositionality. Overall, the resulting network recapitulated the basic characteristics of earlier 16S-based networks, including little (<15%) between-site interaction and few "hub" microbes (scale-freeness).
Conclusions: These new methods will allow the derivation of significant co-variation networks from high-dimensional compositional data, particularly the detection of species and, eventually, sub-species level ecological interactions within microbial communities.

 

Poster A42

The Cure: Making a game of gene selection for breast cancer survival prediction

Benjamin Good, The Scripps Research Institute, United States
Karthik Gangavarapu, The Scripps Research Institute, United States
Salvatore Loguercio, The Scripps Research Institute, United States
Obi L. Griffith, Washington University School of Medicine, United States
Max Nanis, The Scripps Research Institute, United States
Chunlei Wu, The Scripps Research Institute, United States
Andrew I. Su, The Scripps Research Institute, United States
 
Short Abstract: Molecular signatures for predicting breast cancer prognosis could greatly improve care through personalization of treatment. Computational analyses of genome-wide expression datasets have identified such signatures, but these signatures leave much to be desired in terms of accuracy, reproducibility and biological interpretability. Methods that take advantage of structured prior knowledge show promise in helping to define better signatures but most knowledge remains unstructured.

Crowdsourcing via scientific discovery games is an emerging methodology that has the potential to tap into human intelligence at scales and in modes previously unheard of. Here, we developed and evaluated a game called The Cure on the task of gene selection for breast cancer survival prediction. Our central hypothesis was that knowledge linking expression patterns of specific genes to breast cancer outcomes could be captured from game players. We envisioned capturing knowledge both from the players prior experience and from their ability to interpret text related to candidate genes presented to them in the context of the game.

Between its launch in Sept. 2012 and Sept. 2013, The Cure attracted more than 1,000 registered players who collectively played nearly 10,000 games. Gene sets assembled through aggregation of the collected data clearly demonstrated the accumulation of relevant expert knowledge. In terms of predictive accuracy, these gene sets provided comparable performance to gene sets generated using other methods including those used in commercial tests. The Cure is available at http://genegames.org/cure/

 

Poster H20

GenTrAn: a new tool for de-novo transposon structural variant detection from single-end deep-sequencing data

Reazur Rahman, Brandeis University, United States
Yuliya Sytnikova, Brandeis University, United States
Nelson Lau, Brandeis University, United States
 
Short Abstract: Transposons are major structural variants (SVs) in animal genomes. In cancer and human biology, there is a need to determine new transposon SVs beyond the tremendous load of existing transposons (>45% of the human genome). Most current efforts to discover transposon SVs rely on Paired-End (PE) reads from genome deep-sequencing, but the greater costs of PE reads compared to Single-End (SE) reads (the standard form of genome deep-sequencing) motivated us to develop a new bioinformatics tool called GenTrAn (Genome Transposon Analyzer). By scanning SE read libraries with a hybrid approach of broad-level split-read mapping and then filtering with various quality criteria, GenTrAn discovers de-novo transposon SVs with high sensitivity and specificity. Importantly, the transposon SV sites that GenTrAn identifies display target site duplications indicative of a recent transposition event, and point to precise genomic coordinates that enable discrimination of SVs that disrupt coding gene exons versus less-disruptive intronic insertions.

We demonstrate the efficacy of our tool by discovering the genome-wide distributions of transposon SVs in four different Drosophila melanogaster cell lines. GenTrAn showed that transposon SV landscapes can be surprisingly diverse even in a natural cell line, and these SVs tend to avoid coding exons, yet prefer to insert near genes in intergenic regions. In addition, GenTrAn can measure the allele ratio of transposon SVs and all predicted SVs were successfully validated by genomic PCR. GenTrAn’s precision in transposon SV detection and feasibility to mine the more economical SE read libraries make this an attractive tool for genome diagnostics.

 

Poster P03

Biomedical Natural Language Figure Processing Assisting High-Throughput Data Analysis

Hong Yu, UMass Medical School, United States
 
Short Abstract:
An intelligent figure search engine will not only assist biocuration and allow individual biomedical researcher to access figures more efficiently from full-text biomedical articles, but also is an important step towards automatic validations of genome-wide high-throughput predictions. With more and more full-text biomedical articles becoming open access (the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities, the Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing, and PubMed Central), we are developing a figure search system (available at http://figuresearch.askhermes.org) that
integrates natural language processing, image processing, machine learning, and user interfacing “biomedical Natural Language figure Processing” approaches for intelligent biomedical figure search (iBioFigureSearch). Our iBioFigureSearch associates each figure with text that describes the content of the figure, summarizes the associated text, ranks figures by their importance, and integrates both image and text for improved information retrieval. We have evaluated iBioFigureSearch by both intrinsic and task-driven extrinsic evaluation and found that iBioFigureSearch improves user-centered information seeking.

 

Poster H33

VARANT: An Open Souce Variant Annotation Tool

Kunal Kundu, Tata Consultancy Services, United States
Steven Brenner University of California at Berkeley, United States
Rajgopal Srinivasan, Tata Consultancy Services Ltd, India
Uma Sunderam, Tata Consultancy Services Ltd, India
Sadhna Rana, Tata Consultancy Services Ltd, India
Ajithavalli Chellapan, Tata Consultancy Services Ltd, India
 
Short Abstract:
We describe and present a comprehensive and easily extensible open source tool for Human Genome Annotation called VARANT, written in the Python programming language. While several tools for annotating variants are available, we believe that VARANT distinguishes itself by being fully open source, capable of using multiple processors/cores for speedy annotation and providing extensive annotation of UTR and non-coding regions in addition to the customary annotations of genes. An additional highlight of the tool is the ability to incorporate various inheritance models into the annotation process, which when coupled with phenotype information can be used to quickly generate a list of prioritized genes and variants. The tool has been successfully used to identify causal variants in rare immuno-disorders.

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RCSB PDB Poster Prize

Poster L51

Structural Analysis and Remodeling of T-Cell Receptors

Thomas Hoffmann, Technische Universität München, Germany
Iris Antes, Technische Universität München, Germany
 
Short Abstract: T-cells play a major role in the adaptive immune response. T-cell receptor molecules (TCRs) distinguish between self-peptides and pathogenic peptides presented by major histocompatibility complex molecules (MHC) on cell surfaces and thus initiating an immune response. Structural prediction of TCR:peptide:MHC (TCR-p-MHC) complexes would allow a better understanding of this interaction and thus of the molecular basis of T-cell signaling, which is important for the development of immunotherapies and rational vaccine design. TCRs share a common structural scaffold, although the sequence variations in their variable domains can be high and the human TCR repertoire was estimated to be at least 10^8. Thus, due to genetic and structural diversities of the receptor, modeling of TCR structures and their TCR-p-MHC complexes is a challenging task. We investigated the structural characteristics of the TCR variable domains, consisting of two chains (alpha and beta). The analysis showed that the orientation of the TCR beta chain relative to the TCR alpha chain is dependent on the TCR type and that the differences can be described by a common center of rotation. Based on this analysis we developed a force field based prediction tool, which allows predicting the correct TCR geometry for at least 83% of the structures of our test set. In the presentation we will discuss the new methodology and its performance.

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The Best Artwork Award - $200 Cash Prize

Hai Fang, University of Bristol, United Kingdom

Julian Gough, University of Bristol, United Kingdom

supraHex

supraHexThis artwork called ‘supraHex’ is inspired by the prevalence of natural objects such as a honeycomb or at Giant’s Causeway. supraHex has architectural design of a supra-hexagonal map: symmetric beauty around the center, from which smaller hexagons radiate circularly outwards. In addition to this architectural layout, supraHex also captures mechanistic nature of these objects: formation in a self-organising manner. For this, supraHex is able to self-organise the input data (eg transcriptome data). In doing so, genes with similar data patterns are clustered to the same or nearby nodes (hexagons). The map distance (the hexagon size) tells how far each node is away from its neighbors, thus characterising relationships between clustered genes. Based on this map distance, supraHex is also able to partition the map to obtain gene meta-clusters covering continuous regions, as colour-coded by the ‘potato-peach-tomato’ colormap. This artwork is generated by an open-source R/Bioconductor package ‘supraHex’ (http://supfam.org/supraHex).

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 Orienteering Winners

 Bram Weytjens, Michael Crusoe, Sergio Pulido Tamayo, and Svetlana Vinogradova

 

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Speaker Information

Presentation Overview
Speaker Ready Room
Presentation information for Students, Post Docs and Young Investigators!
Ten Simple Rules for Making Good Oral Presentations

Presentation Overview

 

Speakers are requested to review the conference schedules available on the conference website. Please note that minor schedule changes may continue to be made. The conference schedule overview is available at: http://www.iscb.org/cms_addon/conferences/ismb2014/schedule/schedule.php

All parallel sessions are 25 minutes in length and there are four (4), 25 minutes sessions scheduled in the morning and afternoon. Speakers are asked to be available at the presentation room 10-15 minutes before the start of the first presentation.

Speakers should prepare a 20-minute presentation. The additional time will allow for movement to the podium and the opportunity to respond to one or two questions. Each room will have a presentation timer and sessions are chaired to ensure the program schedule is adhered to.

Speaker Ready Room:

Please visit the Speaker Room at least one (1) day before your presentation. A technician will be there and available to assist you to place your presentation on the main presentation computer for transfer to the computer in your presentation room.

Delegates with presentations developed on Apple computers may use their own Apple computer but are requested to meet with the technician in advance so that details can be coordinated regarding the procedure for using the Apple computer for presentations. It is recommended that Apple computer users bring their own cable adapters to connect to the presentation projectors.

The speaker room is located in Room 308, Hynes Convention Center, Level 300 – you can ask the volunteer staff at the Information desk for directions. It is available to conference speakers to review their conference presentations and to transfer their presentations to the meeting room they will present in.

Speakers Room Hours
Saturday July 12, Noon – 5:00 p.m.
Sunday, July 13, 8:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.
Monday, July 14,  8:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.
Tuesday, July 15, 8:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.  

Information about the presentation computers 
The PC's are configured as follow:

PC: HP
CPU Intel i7
Memory 4G
HD 120G

Windows 7 Pro 32 bit
Office 2010 Pro
Adobe X
Media Play 12
QuickTIme 7.7.5
Internet Explorer (Latest Version)
FireFox
Google Chrome

Don't use "embedded fonts" in PowerPoint especially if there's video/audio or any other linked information in the presentation. Make sure that the Powerpoint file and video / audio-clips are put into the same folder.

 

Speaker Tips


Click here to download speaker tips

Attention Students, Post Docs and Young Investigators!

Please read these helpful tips on giving a quality talk at ISMB.

As you prepare to give an oral presentation at ISMB, the following are some helpful tips for ensuring that both you and the international and interdisciplinary conference audience get the most out of your talk. As some talks will be recorded for viewing by our community for years to come, following these tips can also serve to make certain your best possible presentation serves you well in your future career.

Limit the number of slides to be presented.
A common mistake among presenters at all levels of experience is including too many slides for the allotted presentation time. We have all attended talks where the presenter either had to rush through or skip entire sections of slides due to having too many slides for the amount of time allotted to the talk. Worse is the presenter whose talk goes beyond the allotted time, and he or she ignores the session chair and/or session timer in order to give the full presentation detailed in the slides.

A rule of thumb is to have just one robust and informative slide for each minute of the presentation. Two or more slides per minute is sometimes possible, but this typically only works if half of the slides are updates to the slides shown before them, rather than completely new slides of different information. Keep in mind that an oral presentation slot has a time limit, and it will never be enough to fully explain all of your research efforts and results. The goal should be to give enough of an overview, with just enough depth, to make the audience understand your project, believe in your results, and pique their interest to follow up for further information available in your paper, on the web or in a follow up conversation with you after the talk.

ISMB is a conference of several parallel sessions that must all start and stop at the precisely scheduled time, so if some talks go beyond the allotted time limit the entire schedule could be thrown off. With over 150 scheduled talks, one can imagine the havoc that this could create. Therefore, the ISMB schedule will be strictly adhered to by the session chairs, and presenters must be cut off if they are unable to finish their presentations on time. Please ensure you are not one of those presenters!

Prepare slides that show well from a distance.
There are two important aspects of slide preparation: Visibility and readability.

Regarding visibility, color backgrounds and text can look great on a computer screen but awful when projected, and some colors don't display well under any circumstances. Microsoft has some tips on this subject that, for the most part, apply to any presentation software (see http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/powerpoint/HA010120721033.aspx). Important details can fail to be projected with the wrong use of colors, so keeping colors simple and compatible is a safe bet.

Regarding readability, the devil is always in the details, and the highly data-driven aspect of computational biology can make this tip hard to follow. But, if a slide has too much data squeezed into it most audience members will not be able to see or decipher the data. If the data is important for the audience to see or follow, such a slide will serve little or no purpose.

So, this tip is intended to encourage you to consider the data included in your slides. Is it essential for the audience to be able to see it to understand it? If yes, go with simple colors and find ways to highlight and feature the most relevant data through the bold and/or color graphics such as arrows, circles, or magnified zoom options available in your presentation software.

It is also to your benefit to give your slides to the technical staff as early as possible and ask to check out how each slide displays under the actual projection display environment. This will give you time to make changes if the layout shifts using the equipment of the venue, and/or if the color washes out and needs to be changed.

Practice, practice, practice.
You can never over-rehearse an oral scientific presentation. Although slides will prompt you through each topic, it is important to practice out-loud several times. This will help you develop a suitable pace, attain a natural rhythm, and try out several options of words and phrases to find the ones that best communicate your research. It will also ensure you are able to make it through all of your slides without running out of time. If after a few run-throughs you still cannot meet the time limit, you will need to make adjustments.

Practicing is important for everyone, but it can be even more important if English is not your native language. The conference is expected to have attendees from over 50 countries. Because you will be communicating to many other non-native English speakers your pronunciation should be well exercised. If at all possible, you should ask a family member, friend, colleague from your lab or your advisor to listen to at least one practice session so you can work out the nerves of speaking to a live audience and gain valuable feedback. If possible, self-recording your presentation is another valuable tool.

Practice sessions should start well before you travel to Stockholm. Please make time the night before your talk to practice again. If you are scheduled to give a 20-minute talk, you should schedule one full hour of practice time that final night to allow yourself at least two or three rehearsals.

Each time you practice you will say things slightly differently, which is fine. When you give the actual conference presentation from the podium, it should sound like you have given this talk before, but not sound like you are reading from a script.

Relax and learn from your presentation experience.
Each time you give a talk you will improve your presentation skills and gain confidence in your public speaking abilities. Pay attention to what you did well and where you might have room to improve, and make a note of it for your next talk.

Whether this is the first for fifty-first time you are speaking at a major international conference, you will likely become nervous as the time of your talk approaches (even if you have given this same talk before). These nerves will likely stay with you as you start to give your talk. But, please know that almost everyone experiences this. The audience is interested in your presentation and not nearly as aware of your nerves as you are. Take a deep breath and try to slow down if needed - many speakers talk too fast when they are nervous. If you have rehearsed in advance, the nerves will subside as you hit your stride and you will do very well.

Last but not least, thank you!
There are many conference options these days, but none that are as large and internationally diverse in the field of bioinformatics/computational biology as this one. Thank you for choosing to submit your research to ISMB and congratulations on having your work accepted for presentation. We hope this proves to be a positive experience, and that we will see you again at many more ISMB conferences in the future.

For additional oral presentation tips, please read Phil Bourne's  "Ten Simple Rules for Making Good Oral Presentations" in ISCB's official open access journal, PLoS Computational Biology, at http://www.ploscompbiol.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pcbi.0030077 .

Awards - ISMB 2014

Ian Lawson Van Toch Memorial Award for Outstanding Student Paper

F1000 Poster Award

RCSB PDB Poster Prize

PhRMA Foundation Awards

Art & Science

 

 

Ian Lawson Van Toch Memorial Award for Outstanding Student Paper

 

The Outstanding Student Paper Award is given to the student who presents the most thought-provoking or original paper at the Conference, as judged by our panel of experts. For 2013 the award has been presented to Wyatt Clark from Indiana University, United States.

This award is given in memory of Ian Lawson Van Toch, a 23 year old Medical Biophysics graduate student at the University of Toronto who passed away in August 2007. Ian was fortunate to have already discovered his passion for computational biology and how it can - and will - lead to quantum breakthroughs in cancer research. This passion was sparked when Dr Igor Jurisica hired Ian to work in his lab at the Ontario Cancer Institute as a researcher during the summer of 2006. That introduction blossomed into a mentoring relationship that is so vital to helping young students launch their careers.

Our thanks go to the Princess Margaret Hospital Foundation, and IBM who have sponsored this award since 2008. 

Past recipients of this special award include:

  • ISMB/ECCB 2013: Wyatt Clark, Indiana University, United States
  • ISMB 2012: Deniz Yorukoglu, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, United States
  • ISMB/ECCB 2011: Sara Berthoumieux, Inria, France
  • ISMB 2010: Keren Yizhak, Tel Aviv University, Israel
 

 

 

 

 

 

F1000 Poster Award

F1000Research

F1000 poster awards will be presented for outstanding ISMB 2014 poster presentations. Prizes include a one year subscription to F1000Prime (value: $250) and a free submission to F1000Research (value: $1000).

 

RCSB PDB Poster Prize

The RCSB PDB Poster Prize will be awarded for the best student poster presentation in the category of Structure and Function Prediction. The award will consist of a related educational book.

Other information is at
http://www.rcsb.org/pdb/static.do?p=general_information/about_pdb/poster_prize.html

 

PhRMA Foundation Awards

 

altThe PhRMA Foundation provides fellowships and grants to young scientists pursuing research careers in the discipline of Informatics. The goal of the Informatics Program is to promote the use of informatics in an integrative approach to understanding biological and disease processes. Informatics awards support career development for scientists engaged in cutting-edge research in information technology and experimental validation, thus advancing the integration of molecular and clinical approaches into problems of pharmacological concern. Award winners are not necessarily ISMB presenters, and these awards are presented with no strings attached. 
 
The Art and Science Exhibition 

 

The Best 2013 Artwork award of 200 USD went to:  Cosmopolitan Chicken Project

Jan Aerts and co-authors (Ryo Sakai1,2, Peter Konings1,2 , Yves Moreau1,2, Koen Vanmechelen, Jan Aerts1,2)

1) KU Leuven, Department of Electrical Engineering-ESAT, STADIUS, Leuven, Belgium
2) iMinds Future Health Department, Leuven, Belgium

 
 

ISMB 2014 Submission Deadlines

 

(Schedule Subject to Change) As of: May 21, 2014

 

Special Interest Group & Satellite Meetings (SIGs)

Monday, September 9, 2013

Call for SIGs Opens

Friday, October 18, 2013

SIG Submission Deadline

Friday, November 15, 2013

SIG Acceptance Notification

Friday, December 6, 2013

SIG Preliminary Details Required for website

Friday, April 4, 2014

SIG Program (preliminary) Available on web

Friday, May 9, 2014

SIG Complete Program on web

 

Proceedings Track (Papers)

Monday, September 30, 2013

Call for Proceedings Submissions Opens   

Friday, January 10, 2014

Proceedings Submission Deadline

Friday, February 7, 2014

Announcement of Submissions Selected for the Second Round

Friday, March 7, 2014

Revised Submission Deadline

Friday, March 28, 2014

Conditional Acceptance Notification

Friday, April 11, 2014

Final Submission Deadline

Friday, April 18 2014 Final Acceptance Notification

 

Special Sessions Track

Monday, September 23, 2013

Call for Special Sessions Opens

Friday, November 22, 2013

Special Sessions Submission Deadline

Friday, December 20, 2013

Special Sessions Acceptance Notification

Friday, January 24, 2014

Special Sessions Revised Program Deadline

Friday, January 31, 2014

Final Acceptance of Proposals

Friday, May 9, 2014

Special Sessions Complete Program on web

 

Workshops Track

Monday, September 23, 2013

Call for Workshops Opens

Friday, December 20, 2013

Workshops Submission Deadline

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Workshop Acceptance Notification

Friday, April 4, 2014

Detailed Schedule with Speakers

Friday, May 9, 2014

Complete Workshop Program Due

 

Highlight Papers Track

Monday, October 14, 2013

Call for Highlights Track Opens

Friday, February 28, 2014

Highlights Submission Deadline

Friday, April 4, 2014

Highlights Acceptance Notification

 

Art and Science Exhibition

Monday, October 14, 2013

Call for Art and Science Exhibition Opens

Friday, May 31, 2014

Artwork Submission Deadline

Monday, June 2, 2014

Art and Science Exhibition Acceptance Notification

 

 

Technology Track

Monday, October 14, 2013

Call for Technology Track Opens

Friday, May 2, 2014

Submission Deadline

Friday, May 16, 2014

Technology Track Acceptance Notification

 

Posters

Monday, November 18, 2013

Call for Posters Opens

Friday, March 14, 2014

Poster Submission Deadline

Friday, April 11, 2014

Poster Acceptance Notification

 

Late Breaking Research (LBR) Track

Monday, January 27, 2014

LBR Call for Proposal Opens

Friday, March 28, 2014

LBR Submission Deadline

Friday, April 25, 2014

LBR Acceptance Notification (Possibly extended to April 28)

 

Student Council Symposium 2014

Monday, February 3, 2014

Symposium Submission Opens

Friday, May 9, 2014

Symposium Submission Closes

Friday, May 16, 2014

Symposium Submission Acceptance Notification

Friday, June 4, 2014

Student Council Travel Fellowship Deadline

Friday, June 4, 2014

Student Council Travel Fellowship Acceptance Notification

Friday, May 30, 2014

Symposium Late Poster Submission Deadline

Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Symposium Late Poster Acceptance Notification

Friday, July 11, 2014

Student Council Symposium Date

 

Late posters

Monday, March 17, 2014

Call for Late Posters Opens

Friday, April 18, 2014

Late Poster Submission Deadline

Friday, May 9, 2014

Late Poster Acceptance Notification

 

Travel Fellowships

Dates Vary (2014)

Travel Fellowship Application Invitations Sent (dates based on presentation acceptances)

Monday, April 25, 2014

Travel Fellowship Application Deadline

Monday, June 2, 2014

Travel Fellowship Acceptance Notification

 

 

ISMB Conference

Thursday, July 10, 2014

Conference registration opens on-site

Friday, July 11, 2014

Special Interest Group Meetings (SIGs)/Student Council Symposium

Saturday, July 12, 2014

Special Interest Group Meetings (SIGs)/Tutorials/Junior Principal Investigator Meeting

Sunday, July 13, Monday, July 14 and Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Conference Program

 

Registration

Monday, March 24, 2014

Registration Opens

Friday, June 6, 2014 (5:00 pm Pacific)

Early Registration Discount Cut-off date

Friday, June 27, 2014 (5:00 pm Pacific)

Online Registration Closes

Thursday, July 10, 2014

Late Registration available onsite Hynes Convention Center (3:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.)

ISMB 2014 Registration

To register and pay for the conference please log in at:
https://www.iscbconferences.org/CONFERENCES/ISMB-2014/

***Online Registration has now closed ****


On-site registration for ISMB 2014, Satellite and SIG meetings will be available at the conference registration desk at the Hynes Convention Center, Hall C Pre-function foyer,  beginning Thursday, July 10, 3:00 pm - 6:00 pm. Registration rates are shown below.

 

Registration

Before registering please review the details below about the ISMB conference and its many components.

Please note online registration closes Friday, June 27, 2014, 5:00 p.m. Pacific Time Zone. After this point only on-site registration will be available at the conference registration desk at the Hynes Convention Center, Hall C Pre-function foyer. All early and online registration discounts are expired for on-site registration.
 

Conference Registration Fees include:

  • Opening reception with Exhibitors (Saturday, July 12)
  • Scientific sessions (Sunday, July 13 through Tuesday, July 15)
  • Poster sessions and poster receptions (Sunday, July 13 and Monday, July 14)
  • Exhibit hall entrance
  • Coffee breaks  (Sunday, July 13 through Tuesday, July 15)
  • One electronic version of the conference proceedings*

Optional Registration Items at Additional Fees

  • Two-day 3Dsig Structural Bioinformatics and Computational Biophysics Satellite Meeting, Friday, July 11 & Saturday, July 12 including 3Dsig Evening Session and Dinner, Friday, July 11
  • Optional 3Dsig Evening Session and Dinner (for delegates not registered to the 3Dsig Satellite Meeting) - Friday, July 11
  • Two-day CAMDA Satellite Meeting, Friday, July 11 and Saturday, July 12
  • Optional CAMDA Satellite Meeting Dinner (dinner not included in registration fee) - Friday, July 11, 6:30 pm
  • Two-day Special Interest Group meetings – Friday, July 11 and Saturday, July 12 (SIGs)
  • One-day Special Interest Group meetings - Friday, July 11 or Saturday, July 12 (SIGs)
  • Student Council Symposium, Friday, July 11
  • Optional Integrative RNA Biology (IRB-SIG) SIG Dinner (dinner not included in registration fee) - Friday, July 11, 7:30 pm
  • Orienteering Ice Breaker, Friday, July 11
  • Tutorials, Saturday, July 12
  • Conference Reception at MIT Kresge Lobby and tour of MIT Museum – Monday, July 14
  • Additional copy of the ISMB Tutorial or Conference Proceedings – (electronic format)
  • Hotel accommodations

*Please note - An electronic version of the conference proceedings will be given to each delegate. The proceedings will also be available as an open access, online-only issue of Bioinformatics. The conference proceedings will not be available in print. Delegates wanting printed copies of papers are encouraged to print the papers they are interested in prior to the conference by accessing the online proceedings. Details for accessing the online version will be posted on the conference home page on or after June 15, 2014.

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REGISTRATION FEES

 

ISCB MEMBER FEES - All prices in US dollars ON or BEFORE June 6, 2014 June 7, 2014 until June 27, 2014 AFTER June 27, 2014
Student $500.00 $700.00 $750.00
Academic/Non-profit/Government/Postdoc $700.00 $900.00 $950.00
Corporate $800.00 $1000.00 $1050.00

 

NON-MEMBER FEES - All prices in US dollars ON or BEFORE June 6, 2014 June 7, 2014 until June 27, 2014 AFTER June 27, 2014
Student $600.00 $800.00 $850.00
Academic/Non-profit/Government/Postdoc $900.00 $1100.00 $1150.00
Corporate $1000.00 $1200.00 $1250.00

 

 

ISCB MEMBERSHIP (ISCB Membership Fee Chart available here)

ISCB MEMBERS: If you are a current member of ISCB, you must use the email address registered with your ISCB membership record in order to register at the discounted member rates through the online system. If you do not know the email address you used to register with ISCB, please use the help function at: http://www.iscb.org/iscb-forgot-your-password

NON-MEMBERS OF ISCB: Non-members will be able to join ISCB through the online conference registration system and immediately receive member rates for ISMB 2014. You can either join when you register for the conference or you can join directly with ISCB here: http://www.iscb.org/membership.shtml and then immediately register for ISMB at the member rates.

ISCB MEMBERSHIP RENEWAL: If your ISCB membership is not current or will expire on or before July 15, 2014, you will be offered an opportunity to renew your membership as part of your registration fees through the online system.

Group Registration - please read carefully BEFORE your group registers!

Register a minimum of six (6) and receive one (1) additional registration for free - a minimum value of $500*- Offer valid until May 16, 2014.

Individuals from the same lab or organization have an opportunity to receive a 7th ISMB conference registration free when registering as a group.

To take advantage of this special offer please follow these instructions:

1) Contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to notify us you will have a group of 7 or more, and identify the delegate (name, affiliation, email and registration type*) who will receive the free registration.
2) Have your group of at least six (6) register and pay for ISMB 2014 conference registration. The person designated to receive the free registration should not register until they receive special instructions from the conference organizers, which will happen after the group's paid registrations are confirmed.
3) Provide This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. evidence of your group's paid registrations (names, affiliation, email addresses and receipt numbers). Once these registrations are verified the special registration instructions will be forwarded to the individual designated to receive the complimentary registration.

*The complimentary registration is applicable to the lowest priced registration fee from the group at the Early Bird Discounted Rate. Registration is for the main conference and does not include additional registration options (ie. Tutorials, Special Interest Group Meetings (SIGs), Satellite Meetings (SMs), etc.)

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REGISTRATION INSTRUCTIONS


To pay your registration via fax or mail, please complete the online registration choosing the non-credit card payment option, print out the paper invoice and fax to 1+780-414-1664 or mail it along with your credit card details using the form available here (American Express, Mastercard or Visa only) to:

To pay by check make your payment payable to:

International Society for Computational Biology and mail along with a copy of your invoice to:

ISMB 2014 Registration
Suite 437, 11215 Jasper Avenue
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
T5K 0L5

For questions about your registration contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

 

PAYMENT OPTIONS

ISMB 2014 conference fees are charged in United States Dollars.

CREDIT CARDS

The following credit cards are accepted for registration: American Express, MasterCard, and Visa.

WIRE TRANSFER

To arrange a wire transfer please email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to request wire transfer instructions. If you will be paying by ACH rather than an electronic wire transfer, please specify that as the detailed instructions are different. Please note that any bank fees must be paid by the participant. Should funds arrive with bank fees deducted, payment of the difference will be charged to the participant at on-site registration.

 

For further information write to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

 

Points to remember when registering for 2014:

The following parallel meetings may affect the way you choose to register for optional items:

  • Friday, July 11: Student Council Symposium, 3Dsig Satellite Meeting, CAMDA Satellite Meeting, One and Two-day SIG Meetings
  • Saturday, July 12: 3Dsig Satellite Meeting, CAMDA Satellite Meeting, One and Two-day SIG Meetings, Tutorials

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VISA INVITATION LETTERS


Invitation letters required for visa applications will be sent with your confirmation after registration and full payment have been received. You must be registered and paid-in-full for the conference in order to receive an invitation letter. IMPORTANT: If you require a US visa for entrance register early it can take time for your application to be processed - do not delay in submitting your visa application.

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OPTIONAL REGISTRATION ITEMS AT ADDITIONAL FEES

 

Donate to the ISCB Travel Fellowship Campaign

 During the registration process, you will have the opportunity to donate to the ISCB Travel Fellowship Campaign.  YOU can make a difference in the future of computational biology and bioinformatics by supporting tomorrow’s researchers.

Student travel fellowships help propel young investigators toward important future discoveries. Join ISCB in giving students access to the principal role models within the field and help us influence the paths of scientific careers.

AS federal funding opportunities continue to decline, ISCB reaches out to you to help this important initiative. Each year ISCB receives over 300 travel fellowship requests. With currently available funds, we can only support approximately 70% of these requests by providing partial funding to each recipient. Making a donation to the travel fellowship fund will enable us to support even more students with higher travel awards

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Student Council Symposium

 

STUDENT COUNCIL SYMPOSIUM (SCS10) Website

Student Council Symposium (Friday, July 11)
FEES - All prices in US Dollars
For delegates also registering for ISMB $75.00
For delegates registering for the Student Council Symposium only $100.00

 

The 10th ISCB Student Council Symposium (SCS10) is a student-organized event featuring keynote lectures, oral presentations and a poster session. In addition to previous years' schedules, a career event will be organized with a variety of distinguished speakers from industry and academia. The Symposium is tailored mainly to undergraduate and graduate students as well as post-docs in computational biology and related disciplines.

The Student Council Symposium is a forum for students and young researchers in the fields of Computational Biology and Bioinformatics. Participants will have the opportunity to present their work to an international audience, build a network within the computational biology community and develop important soft skills in an environment that fosters exchange of ideas and knowledge.

FEES

The Student Council registration fee includes morning and afternoon coffee breaks and lunch.

Note: Student Council Symposium registrants are not required to register as delegates for the ISMB 2014 conference and can instead choose to attend only the SCS10.

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SATELLITE MEETINGS


3Dsig - Friday, July 11 and Saturday, July 12
CAMDA 2014 - Friday, July 11 and Saturday, July 12

Note: Registrants are not required to register as delegates for the ISMB 2014 conference to attend a Satellite Meeting. You may select "Satellite only" to register just for the 3Dsig or CAMDA Satellite Meeting. Satellite Meeting registration does not allow access to the SIG Meetings. Delegates wishing to attend portions of the Satellite Meeting and portions of one or more SIG must register for both events.

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3Dsig Satellite Meeting


The registration fee for the 3Dsig Satellite Meeting includes the evening session and dinner. Daily lunches for the 3Dsig Satellite Meeting are included. Each Satellite Meeting participant will receive a meeting notes booklet.

 

3Dsig Satellite Meeting (for Delegates also registering for ISMB 2014)
FEES - All prices in US Dollars ON or BEFORE June 6, 2014 AFTER June 6, 2014
Student $250.00 $350.00
Academic/Non-profit/Government/Postdoc $300.00 $400.00
Corporate $400.00 $500.00

 

3Dsig Satellite Meeting Only
FEES 3Dsig Satellite Meeting Only - All prices in US Dollars ON or BEFORE June 6, 2014 AFTER June 6, 2014
Student $350.00 $450.00
Academic/Non-profit/Government/Postdoc $400.00 $500.00
Corporate $500.00 $600.00

 

3Dsig Evening Session and Dinner

On Friday, July 11, the 3Dsig will host an evening dinner including a panel discussion and keynote speaker, both on a central topic to Structural Bioinformatics and Computational Biophysics. This session is included in the 3Dsig Satellite registration. Other delegates wanting to attend this 3Dsig evening and dinner session can do so for an additional registration price of $75.00. Additional evening sessions tickets are available for purchase when registering online. The dinner will be held at the Sheraton Hotel Boston, adjacent to the Hynes Convention Center.

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 CAMDA Satellite Meeting – Critical Assessment of Massive Data Analysis


CAMDA provides a forum for the critical assessment of different techniques used in large-scale data analysis in the life-sciences, such as for high-dimensional gene expression profiling.  CAMDA aims to establish the state-of-the-art in analysis methods, as well as identify progress and highlight promising directions for future efforts. CAMDA will hold a dinner on Friday, July 11th (6:30 pm) and tickets can be purchased during online registration. Dinner is not included in the CAMDA registration fee. 

Dinner Location: Summer Shack Boston, 50 Dalton Street Boston, MA 02115 (adjacent to the Hynes Convention Center)

For All Delegates - CAMDA Satellite Meeting
FEES - All prices in US Dollars ON or BEFORE June 6, 2014 AFTER June 6, 2014
Student $200.00 $300.00
Academic/Non-profit/Government/Postdoc $300.00 $400.00
Corporate $400.00 $500.00

 

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SPECIAL INTEREST GROUP MEETINGS (SIGs)


ISMB 2014 will host several one- and two-day Special Interest Group meetings on Friday, July 11, and Saturday, July 12, prior to the main ISMB conference.

Note: SIG Registrants are not required to register for the ISMB 2014 conference to attend a SIG meeting. You may select "SIG only" to register only for a SIG.

Registering for a SIG allows you to move freely between all SIGs that take place at the same time as the meeting for which you are registered, to the extent that the room capacities can accommodate. SIG registration does not allow access to Satellite Meetings.

Registering for a SIG:

During online registration you must register for the primary SIG of your choice on a daily basis. If you register for the first day of a two-day SIG meeting the registration system will automatically select the second day. If you want to attend only one-day of a two-day SIG, or prefer an alternate SIG on the second day, simply deselect the second day and leave empty or select the second SIG choice rather than the default choice. If registering for a two-day SIG, the registration fee is equal to two (2) daily rates.

Each SIG participant will receive a booklet of schedules for all SIGs and an electronic version of each SIG meeting's abstracts in PDF format. Lunch is included in the SIG registration fee.

Please register for the SIG in which you are most interested so that we can assign SIGs to larger and smaller rooms as needed. All SIG meetings will be held at the Hynes Convention Center.

NOTE: SIG registrants who have registered for only one day of SIG meetings are able to participate in SIG meetings only on the day for which they have registered.

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One-Day SIG Pre-Conference (Friday, July 11 or Saturday, July 12)

 

One-Day SIGs – Friday, July 11, 2014

 

One-Day SIGs – Saturday, July 12, 2014


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Two-Day SIG Pre-Conference (Friday, July 11 and Saturday, July 12)

 

DAILY SIG FEES FOR DELEGATES ALSO REGISTERING FOR ISMB 2014
1-Day SIG FEES - All prices in US Dollars ON or BEFORE June 6, 2014 AFTER June 6, 2014
Student $95.00 $145.00
Academic/Non-profit/Government/Postdoc $110.00 $160.00
Corporate $125.00 $175.00

 

DAILY SIG FEES FOR DELEGATES NOT REGISTERING FOR ISMB 2014
1-Day SIG FEES - All prices in US dollars ON or BEFORE June 6, 2014 AFTER June 6, 2014
Student $145.00 $195.00
Academic/Non-profit/Government/Postdoc $160.00 $210.00
Corporate $175.00 $225.00


NOTE: One-day SIG registrants must also register for ISMB 2014 if participating in any of the main conference sessions. SIG-only registration does not include ISMB 2014 registration.

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TUTORIAL SESSIONS


Saturday, July 12

ISMB delegates are invited to register for one or two half-day tutorials. The tutorial fee includes one hard-copy of the tutorial notes of the tutorial registered for, plus one electronic version which includes notes from both tutorials. Lunch is included in the tutorial registration fee only for delegates registering for two tutorials, and registering for two tutorials also saves 50% off the price of the second tutorial.

Delegates registering for only one tutorial have the option to purchase a $35.00 lunch ticket during online registration.


Tutorial Sessions (Saturday, July 12)
FEES - All prices in US Dollars 1 Tutorial 2 Tutorials
ISCB Members $80.00 $120.00
Non-Members $130.00 $195.00

 

Note: You must be registered for the ISMB 2014 conference to attend a tutorial.

 

BOSTON COMMON ORIENTEERING EVENT & ICEBREAKER


Discover the world famous Boston Common by joining other conference attendees in exploring the Boston Common and immediate surrounding area. This ISMB tradition of offering an orienteering event has proven to be a great way to meet other attendees before the main conference starts. (Friday, July 11, 6:30 p.m.) Additional details can be found here.

Cost per participant is $15.00

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CONFERENCE RECEPTION AT MIT MUSEUM  **Reception at the MIT Museum

Monday, July 14, 7:00 - 10:00 p.m.
Cost: $25.00
*Please note transportation is not provided to attend this reception. Transportation options include: a 30 minute walk; 20 minute transit ride, or 10 minute cab ride from the Hynes Convention Center.
 
MIT Museum:    
265 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
 
Delegates can purchase tickets during online registration for the reception to be held at the MIT Museum. A selection of hors d'oeuvres and one drink ticket are included in the cost. Additional cash bars will be available. This is an opportunity to spend time with delegates and visit the famous MIT Museum.
 

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PUBLICATIONS


All ISMB 2014 registrants will receive, at no additional charge, one copy of the proceedings. All tutorial participants will receive one copy of the tutorial notes in addition to the conference proceedings. The proceedings and the tutorial notes are available in electronic format only. Additional copies are available for the following fees:

  • Proceedings (Electronic version only) $25.00
  • Tutorial notes (Electronic version includes both tutorials) $25.00

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CONFERENCE AND ISCB TEE SHIRT FOR SALE


Conference delegates can purchase an ISMB 2014 Conference tee shirt and/or an ISCB Society tee shirt during online registration. These high-quality tee shirts can be ordered online only until June 6, 2014 at a cost of $10.00 each.

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HOTEL ACCOMMODATIONS


The organizers are pleased to announce its official housing partner onPeak who have negotiated reduced hotel rates and travel discounts for your trip to Boston. A small block of student rooms are available on a first come, first serve basis for students who have registered and paid for the conference. Don't delay in booking your room.

Book through the simple-to-use reservation website or with helpful and friendly booking agents. 
Full details on the hotel and booking a room are available here.

Please note: onPeak is the only official housing company associated with ISMB 2014. While other hotel resellers may contact you offering housing for your trip, they are not endorsed by or affiliated with the show and entering into financial agreements with such companies can have costly consequences.

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ATTENTION ALL ATTENDEES


Electronic Conference Proceedings Only:

Conference proceedings will be available as an open access, online-only issue of Bioinformatics, and will not be available in print. If you want printed proceedings it is recommended that you print copies of desired papers from the online proceedings in advance. It is also recommended that you bring a laptop computer to the conference to view the conference proceedings on the USB drive that will be provided in your delegate bag. Conference proceedings will be available as an open access, online-only issue of Bioinformatics after June 15, 2014.

Wireless internet services will be available throughout the conference facility, and a limited number of computer stations will be available for online viewing.

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INTERNATIONAL VISITORS TO THE UNITED STATES


All international visitors, regardless of country of origin, must present a passport when entering the United States, and in many cases an entry visa is also required.

It is essential that delegates arriving from outside the US have a valid passport with expiration at least six months after the planned date of entry, and any other required travel documents such as an entry visa. Please ensure that you allow enough time to apply for an entry visa should one be required for your arrival and participation at ISMB 2014 in Boston, USA. Paid registration must be received by ISMB 2014 before a visa letter can be provided, so early registration is suggested for all delegates requiring an entry visa.

Details are available on a number of websites including:

 

Travel to the USA:

http://www.discoveramerica.com/ca/entry.html

USA Visashttp://travel.state.gov/content/visas/english/visit/visitor.html

 

ISCB and the ISMB 2014 conference organizers assume no responsibility for the accuracy of information on any of the above websites, and encourage you to communicate directly with the US Embassy or US Consulate office that services your particular needs for entry into the United States.

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REGISTRATION DESK HOURS
Registration Desk Hours – July 10 – 15
Hynes Convention Center – Main Floor
 
Thursday, July 10 3:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.
Friday, July 11  
7:30 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.
Saturday, July 12  
7:30 a.m. – 7:30 p.m.
Sunday, July 13 7:30 a.m. – 7:30 p.m.
Monday, July 14 
7:30 a.m. – 7:30 p.m.
Tuesday, July 15 7:30 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.


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CANCELLATION POLICY


Request for registration cancellation must be made in writing and sent to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or by fax to 1+780-414-1664.

ISMB 2014 Registration

Suite 437, 11215 Jasper Avenue
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
T5K 0L5

For questions about your registration please contact us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

All refunds will be made in US dollars and processed following the ISMB 2014 Conference.

Refunds will be made in accordance with the following schedule.
· Cancellations received on or before May 11, 2014, will receive a full refund minus a $100.00 processing fee.
· Cancellations received from May 12, 2014 through June 11, 2014 will receive a full refund minus a $200.00 processing fee.
· No refund of fees will be made after June 11, 2014.

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