ISCB Newsletter 9-1

{ C O N T E N T S }
Volume 9, Issue 1

URLs in Grant Proposals
Your Feedback Requested

Announcing MentorNet
E-Mentoring Program

ISMB 2006 News & Updates:

- ISMB 2006 Registration
Now Open

- SwissProt 20

- SIGs & Satellite Meetings

- Introducing the PLoS Track of Oral Presentations

- Student Council Symposium

- Help Send a Student to ISMB

- Advertise in the ISMB 2006 Newsletter

Other Conferences News
and Reports:

- RECOMB Celebrates 10 Years

- Affiliate Focus: OKBIOS

- Travel Fellowships Available

- Key Conferences: Key Dates

Student Travel Fellowships Yearbook

Bioinformatics Books New Online Features

Post your Events & News to ISCB Website

Upcoming Conferences & Events

News From the Field

ACCESS THE STUDENTCOUNCIL NEWSLETTER

ACCESS NEWSLETTER ARCHIVES

ISCB Membership

Late last year ISCB opened its annual membership registration site and began open enrollment for the 2006 membership year. Nearly 1000 members have enrolled already, a number that grows by the day as more renewing and first time members sign up. If you haven’t done so already, please visit the membership page to enroll now. Or, if you plan to attend ISMB 2006 in Brazil, you may choose to join ISCB during the conference registration process by following the links and completing the simple forms.

The beauty of this year’s membership registration is that for the first time in the nine year history of ISCB, all memberships span 12 full months from the date of enrollment, rather than expiring at the end of the calendar year as had been the case previously and is a standard among many scientific societies. Therefore, if you register today, your membership benefits will extend well into 2007, enabling you to capture significant conference discounts next year such as PSB and RECOMB before your need to renew again for another year.

In our effort to provide services and benefits that are relevant and keep pace with changing times, we ask that you tell us if the membership benefits listed below continue to serve your professional needs. Please let us know if there are other tangible benefits that would help us retain you as a member in the years ahead, or entice you to become a member if you have never joined before.

Current membership benefits include:

ISCB associated with the Public Library of Science in 2005 to publish the Society’s official journal, PLoS Computational Biology, an open-access journal freely available to everyone, everywhere. One author from every research paper published in the journal is entitled to a complimentary 12-month ISCB membership.

ISCB members enjoy reduced rates on additional journals published under the traditional subscription-based model, which includes: Bioinformatics, Briefings in Bioinformatics, Briefings in Functional Genomics & Proteomics, Computers in Biology and Medicine, Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine, Human Genomics, Human Molecular Genetics, Journal of Biomedical Informatics, Journal of Computational Biology, and OMICS: A Journal of Integrative Biology.
Reduced registration fees at the annual conference of the ISCB, Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology (ISMB) being held August 6-10, 2006 in Fortaleza, Ceara, Brazil, as well as the annual Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing (PSB), RECOMB Conference, and European Conference on Computational Biology (ECCB). Select regional affiliates offer ISCB discounts as well, and several commercial conferences such as select Cambridge Healthtech Institute (CHI) meetings, BioIT World’s Life Sciences Conference + Expo, also discount registration fees for ISCB members. See upcoming conferences page for more information on these and many more related conferences.
MentorNet online mentoring program available to ISCB student and post doc members as protégés, and featuring several ISCB senior scientists among the many MentorNet mentors.
Travel fellowship eligibility for students and postdoctoral fellows to select meetings as announced throughout the year. See travel fellowships page for application form.
Jobs board to assist members in recruiting for open positions at their institutes and organizations.
Leadership and networking opportunities through service on the ISCB Student Council, Board of Directors, or in the role of a committee chair.
Ability to have a direct voice in matters of education, public affairs and policies, conferences, publications and more through involvement in ISCB committee and task forces.
Access to current developments in the field via the Website, quarterly newsletter and frequent ISCB News & Announcements emailings.

ISCB’s mission is to advance the understanding of living systems through computation. This serves not only those members of the global bioinformatics community who choose ISCB as their professional membership society, rather our mission extends far beyond our individual members and also provides valuable information and resources to our affiliated regional groups and the computational biology community-at-large. Examples of this are the online self-posting forms for sharing news about upcoming conferences and events, university degree/certificate programs, and announcements of new products, publications, and funding opportunities. Everyone is encouraged to utilize these self posting pages, members and non-members alike, as the postings help ISCB achieve its mission through broad based dissemination of valuable, relevant information that, bit by bit, advances the understanding of our science.

We hope if you are a past member whose membership has lapsed, either by months or by years, that you will join ISCB again soon, and encourage your peers to do the same. If you have never been a member we invite you to consider an ISCB membership as a step toward achieving a professional mission of your own, while enjoying the many benefits membership will bring to you.