WELCOME TO ISMB 2009! A Note from ISCB President

Frederic R. Coudert, a Trustee of Columbia University, quoted the phrase “May you live in an interesting age” as a Chinese curse (USA’s Academy of Political Science, 1939). That may be incorrect, but he clearly meant it to be a curse describing the challenges of the 1930s. Instead, many of you may consider this a blessing rather than a curse. Clearly, the global financial crisis impacts us as global citizens and ISCB as a young society that at this early point may need growth and consolidation much more than challenge and struggle for survival. Be that as it may, fact is we either grow with the challenge and prosper or weperish. And who would not be better suited for challenges than the International Society for Computational Biology that connects the two most rapidly advancing aspects of today’s life: computers and biology. Working in this interface as the connection between many worlds is both tremendously challenging and rewarding. Resources well spent, a good investment for the public and for our lives!

Communication may be THE most essential component that makes science worth investing in.We communicate by publishing, presenting, and meeting at ISMB/ECCB 2009. Thereby we continue to learn and to grow. Collaborations will start here that help find solutions quicker with our shared resources.

ISCB is making many efforts to grow ISMB in a way that increasingly involves many of you. Since the ISMB/ECCB in Vienna in 2007, the conference has grown into the massively parallel event that you can witness in Stockholm, with seven parallel tracks: two Proceedings tracks that present 46 original papers (published in a Special Issue of our official journal Bioinformatics), two Highlights tracks selecting 62 talks from last year’s top publications, one track with seven Special sessions that focus on new evolving technologies, two Technology tracks with 49 presentations, i.e. a total of 189 talks not counting those presented in one of the satellites such as one of the 9 SIGs, 10 tutorials, or the Student Council Symposium. On top of that, 785 posters are presented. Numerically, this would imply that ~70% of the 1400 expected participants contributed directly.

I thank you all!

Creating a conference of this magnitude involved more than a full year of planning, consumed substantial financial resources, and required hundreds of volunteers working in concert with ISCB’s professional staff. ISMB/ECCB 2009, the 17th International Conference on Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology (ISMB) is held jointly with the 8th European Conference on Computational Biology (ECCB). This is the third time that ISCB manages the multi-track conference exclusively from Society resources. The successes of ISMB/ECCB 2007 (Vienna) and ISMB 2008 (Toronto) have given us confidence that we are fulfilling an important need within our science. You can make this happen again: seize the moment and make it your conference, make it a successful event!

Organizing the best possible international and multi-disciplinary computational biology conference without breaking the bank is a big one for us – possibly the biggest. In fact, the proceeds from this year’s conference will largely go toward covering the advance funding needs of the next two ISMB conferences due to the extensive deposits required by the large venues (whose size is a necessity for this well-attended and massively parallel conference). We also need to cover the staff salaries incurred during the year of planning and preparation, all of which is spent long before the first conference registration fee is collected as income to offset these advance costs. The cycle of expense and income is delicately balanced, and certainly makes for the interesting times ISCB lives in! After two ISMB conferences lost money, ISCB was at the brink of bankruptcy; luckily we have tightened the belt and achieved better returns than expected subsequently, thereby balancing out the losses with the gains. For 2009 we might miss the mark, but ISMB 2008 returned enough to keep us from going under. In 2010 we anticipate excellent attendance and strong interest from sponsors, which will serve to balance us out again. Keeping ISCB financially afloat is a demanding task!

Another aspect of running our main meeting is ISCB’s ongoing effort to invite all branches of computational biology to join. Our community is still too fragmented and growing. Many talk about interdisciplinary research, for us this is a daily reality. However, this strength is exactly the weakness that leads to fragmentation: too many journals, conferences, and societies are of interest to our members. One important vision is that ISCB provides the unique opportunity to counter this trend, i.e. the forum that unites the newly forming field.

I extend the gratitude of ISCB to honorary conference chair Gunnar von Heijne, a Swedish computational biologist of international renown. Marie-France Sagot and Gene Myers agreed to unite as conferenceco-chairs many years after each ran separate ECCB and ISMB meetings in 2003. Their efforts are evident throughout the conference and they are both to be commended for a job well done. Many thanks to the others on the Steering Committee: Arne Elofsson, Dan Gusfield, Janet Kelso, Michal Linial, Jill Mesirov, David Rocke, and Reinhard Schneider, as well as to the additional members of the Scientific Organizing Committee, Milana Frenkel-Morgenstern, Dietlind Gerloff, Rodrigo Lopez, Marco Punta and Hershel Safer. Thanks also to Sean O’Donoghue and Anita de Waard for realizing another ISMB party (Matrix Reloaded).

Hundreds of reviewers along with editors or area chairs selected the presentations for all tracks. Thank you! Thanks to your efforts we can present the high quality of the final selections that make up the scientific program.

ISCB Conferences Director Steven Leard has once again outdone himself in expertly managing the logistical arrangements. As a truly international undertaking, this included coordination of efforts among his team in Edmonton, Canada, the Sweden-based professional conference organizing company, Congrex, our California-based ISCB administrative office, and the dozens of local and international volunteer students helping delegates find their way around the conference venue (and central train station!). Many of you will get help from Steven during the conference: please don’t forget to thank him!

Looking ahead: ISMB 2010 will be in Boston, USA (July 11-14, 2010), and ISMB/ECCB 2011 will again be in Vienna, Austria. Please help us spread this news, make plans to come, commit to bringing others with you, and volunteer to help improve the meeting and the Society.

Most immediately and most importantly, enjoy the conference!

Burkhard Rost
ISCB President