FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

ISCB Urges EU to Sustain Funding Without Cuts to Basic Science Research

La Jolla, USA and Munich/Saarbruecken, Germany - The International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB) announced today their letter to the Presidents of the European Commission, European Council and European Parliament stressing the importance of basic scientific research and the need to exempt this research from budget cuts.  The organization, which represents over 3000 member scientists worldwide, supports research using advanced information technology to better understand complex biological systems and processes.  This interdisciplinary scientific field is at the core of current scientific progress in many fields.  The Society points out that the dominant scientific revolutions happening around the world today are precisely in this intersection of information technology and biology.

The Society advocates against devastating funding cuts to critical basic research.  The letter stresses the fact, agreed upon in the scientific community, that project based research alone cannot produce the fundamental breeding ground necessary for breakthrough progress and creation of new economic market segments.  It goes on to comment on the competitive nature of scientific research, and the unnecessary loss to the excellence developed throughout the laboratories of Europe should funding for basic research be cut.  The Society urges the European Union to look to the success of national members in maintaining funding for critical scientific research, and do the same.

The full content of the letter can be viewed at www.iscb.org/images/stories/active-campaign/2012-Nov20-EC-letter-to-EU-urging-funding-basic-science.pdf

ISCB encourages its members and colleagues to share this Press Release and write immediately to their elected representatives to express their views on the importance of appropriate funding for basic scientific research.

About ISCB

The International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB) is a scholarly society dedicated to advancing the scientific understanding of living systems through computation.  The Society serves over 3,000 members from more than 70 countries.

Press Contacts:

Prof. Dr. Thomas Lengauer, Vice President, ISCB, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., +49-681-9325-3000           

Prof. Dr. Burkhard Rost, President, ISCB, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., +49-89-289-17-811

GLBIO 2013 - Registration Is Now Open

Dear ISCB Members, Colleagues, and Past GLBIO Attendees:

The Great Lakes Bioinformatics Conference is ISCB's annual event focused on providing an interdisciplinary forum for the discussion of research findings and methods within the North American Great Lakes region. The conference fosters long-term relationships, provides networking opportunities for researchers from within the region, and creates a collaborative environment for participants from around the world. The 2013 program has been retooled with new elements that will increase the opportunities to present research at many different stages of development. GLBIO will kick off with tutorials and include a full program of keynotes, selected original research presentations, highlights of published works, flash presentations and posters. Your participation is encouraged!

Registration is now open at:  www.iscb.org/glbio2013-register and early registration pricing is available through April 14, 2013.

In addition, all Calls for Presentations are now open: 

Original Research Papers (Proceedings)  Deadline: Jan 14, 2013

Highlight Presentations (previously published papers)  Deadline: Jan 14, 2013

Flash Presentations (abstracts)   Deadline: Jan 14, 2013

Poster Presentations (abstracts)  Deadline: Mar 22, 2013

GLBIO topic areas include: Algorithm Development & Machine Learning; Databases and Ontologies; Text Mining & Natural Language Processing; Bioimage Analysis; Biological Networks; Chemical Biology; Clinical Informatics & Epidemiology; Disease Models & Molecular Medicine; Evolutionary, Comparative, and Meta-Genomics, Gene Regulation & Transcriptomics; Mass Spectrometry & Proteomics; Personalized Genetics and Genomics: Exome, Genome, Transcriptome; RNA & Protein: Structure, Modification, Localizations, Interaction, Function.

This year's keynote presenters exemplify the diversity of the field within this region: Ivet Bahar of University of Pittsburgh; Ziv Bar-Joseph of Carnegie Mellon University (and recipient of the 2012 ISCB Overton Prize); Jing Li of Case Western Reserve University; and Isidore Rigoutsos of Thomas Jefferson University.

We look forward to your participation! Please help spread the word by sharing this information with your colleagues and collaborators.

Sincerely,

Bruce Aronow, Elodie Ghedin, and Russell Schwartz

GLBIO 2013 Conference Chairs

ISCB Africa ASBCB 2013 - Call for Papers, Posters, and Travel Fellowship Applications

Dear ISCB and ASBCB Members and Colleagues,

Don't miss your opportunity to submit a paper or poster to the ISCB Africa ASBCB 2013 Conference on Bioinformatics! Travel Fellowship applications are also now being accepted.

This is the third joint meeting of ISCB and ASBCB, and takes place from March 13th -15th in Tunis, Tunisia. The meeting will include topics of general interest in bioinformatics, with a special focus on the bioinformatics of African pathogens, vectors, and human genetics. We especially welcome abstracts on the bioinformatics of diseases relevant to Africa, and with the new Human Heredity and Health in Africa (H3Africa) initiative the genetics focus is particularly relevant and timely.

Paper submissions: due by November 16th

Poster abstracts: due by December 12th

Travel Fellowship applications: due by December 12th

Please visit the conference submission guidelines and follow the links to submit your paper or poster today.

A limited number of Travel Fellowships will be made available exclusively to students and post docs from African research institutions whose paper or poster submission is accepted. Travel Fellowship applicants must first submit a paper or poster before submitting a Travel Fellowship application. Note that the poster submission deadline is the same as for TF, so be sure not to wait until the last minute and possibly miss the deadline!

Early registration is scheduled to open in three weeks. All early registrants will benefit from discounted prices, and all ISCB and ASBCB members will enjoy significant additional savings.

Please submit your paper or poster (or both!) today. Feel free to share this mail with your colleagues and collaborators to encourage their participation as well. We hope to welcome you to Tunisia in March!

Yours sincerely,

Alia Benkahla
ISCB Africa ASBCB Conference Chair

Dan Masiga
ISCB Africa ASBCB Conference Program Committee Chair

 LAST CALL: Rocky 2012 Early Registration

December 6 - 8 , 2012, Snowmass/Aspen, Colorado, USA

Dear ISCB Members and Colleagues,

THE EARLY REGISTRATION DATE FOR ROCKY 2012 EXPIRES IN LESS THAN TWO DAYS! The 10th Annual Rocky Mountain Bioinformatics Conference is now just weeks away, and early registration expires this week. With a spotlight on regional development in the computational biosciences, this conference has grown into an international program over its ten year history. Invited and accepted presenters represent a broad spectrum of universities, industrial enterprises, government laboratories, and medical libraries from around the world. The meeting is a chance to get to know your colleagues near and far, seek collaborative opportunities, and find synergies that can drive our field forward.

EARLY REGISTRATION DATE IS APPROACHING: Be sure to take advantage of early registration rates while they last. If you are not a current member consider joining ISCB now for immediate additional savings on your conference registration to this and any other ISCB conference. Please note that accepted presenters must register at applicable conference attendee rates by November 6 in order to give a presentation at Rocky 2012.

Register Here Now
Early Registration Deadline: November 8, 2012

Until November 8th the Rocky conference also offers a special Academic Retreat package for groups attending from the same lab or school, including a free student registration. Gather your colleagues and collaborators and come for a lab retreat in addition to attending for the great science and networking.

HOTEL ACCOMMODATIONS SELLING OUT: Rocky 2012 will be held at the new Viceroy Snowmass Hotel, and a special group rate has been negotiated for attendees: $105 single or $140 double occupancy, plus tax. These rates are available until our contracted block of rooms is full, or November 14th, whichever comes first. You must enter the group code of Rocky2012 to secure rooms at the special rate.

Access Full Hotel Details Here

Please forward this mail to anyone you think should know about this conference. All participants are welcome, and we look forward to your participation!

Sincerely,

The Rocky 2012 Conference Organizing Team

Please Sign on to Open Letter to Protect ERC Funding

Dear colleagues,

The discussions at the next summit of the European Union heads of state or government, which is scheduled for 22 and 23 November, will be decisive in determining the EU research budget for the next seven years. Several Member States are demanding severe cuts on the total EU budget and research will have to compete with other policy priorities.

This is a time when we, the scientific community, should act together and make our case to protect research funding, including that of the European Research Council (ERC), from cuts. Decisions will be prepared in discussions among politicians at the national level. All of us must look for opportunities to affect these decisions and send a strong signal to the heads of state or government.

An open letter signed by European Nobel laureates has been published in top European newspapers. The impact of this letter will be increased if it is followed by a mobilization of the national scientific communities. To keep the momentum going, an online petition has been launched:

www.no-cuts-on-research.eu

I would like to ask you to sign it and to encourage all your colleagues to do likewise. Note that in the past, less than 30 000 scientists signed the largest petition for a European scientific cause compared to the hundreds of thousands of signatures on petitions from other groups of society. We must do better than that.

This action is coordinated by the Initiative for Science in Europe (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.; www.initiative-science-europe.org), of which EMBO is a member. Please contact Wolfgang Eppenschwandtner, Executive Coordinator of the ISE if you have any questions or suggestions.

Best regards,

Anna Tramontano, Steering Committee Chair of the European Conference on Computational Biology (ECCB)

Anna Tramontano
Department of Physics
Sapienza University of Rome
P.le Aldo Moro, 5
00185 Rome
Tel: +39 06 49914550
e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
URL: www.biocomputing.it

ISCB Africa ASBCB 2013 - Call for Papers, Posters, and Travel Fellowship Applications

Dear ISCB and ASBCB Members and Colleagues,

Don't miss your opportunity to submit a paper or poster to the ISCB Africa ASBCB 2013 Conference on Bioinformatics! Travel Fellowship applications are also now being accepted.

This is the third joint meeting of ISCB and ASBCB, and takes place from March 13th -15th in Tunis, Tunisia. The meeting will include topics of general interest in bioinformatics, with a special focus on the bioinformatics of African pathogens, vectors, and human genetics. We especially welcome abstracts on the bioinformatics of diseases relevant to Africa, and with the new Human Heredity and Health in Africa (H3Africa) initiative the genetics focus is particularly relevant and timely.

Paper submissions: due by November 16th

Poster abstracts: due by December 12th

Travel Fellowship applications: due by December 12th

Please visit the conference submission guidelines and follow the links to submit your paper or poster today.

A limited number of Travel Fellowships will be made available exclusively to students and post docs from African research institutions whose paper or poster submission is accepted. Travel Fellowship applicants must first submit a paper or poster before submitting a Travel Fellowship application. Note that the poster submission deadline is the same as for TF, so be sure not to wait until the last minute and possibly miss the deadline!

Early registration is scheduled to open in three weeks. All early registrants will benefit from discounted prices, and all ISCB and ASBCB members will enjoy significant additional savings.

Please submit your paper or poster (or both!) today. Feel free to share this mail with your colleagues and collaborators to encourage their participation as well. We hope to welcome you to Tunisia in March!

Yours sincerely,

Alia Benkahla
ISCB Africa ASBCB Conference Chair

Dan Masiga
ISCB Africa ASBCB Conference Program Committee Chair

Last Call for Online Registration – RECOMB Satellite Conference on Regulatory and Systems Genomics, with DREAM Challenges

The 5th Annual RECOMB Conference on Regulatory and Systems Genomics, with DREAM Challenges is just two weeks away! We are very excited that this year's meeting will offer a very strong program featuring:

• 15 keynote talks
  
  
• 53 additional oral presentations
  
  
• more than 100 poster presentations
  
  
• the results of the 7th annual Dialogue for Reverse Engineering Assessments and Methods (the DREAM Challenges)
  
  
• announcement of the selected papers for the "Top Ten Papers in Regulatory Genomics” award for 2011

See the complete agenda here.

Online registration closes on Wednesday November 7.  It will still be possible to register on-site, but we recommend that you register now.

Click here to register.

When we decided in 2008 to combine the RECOMB Satellite Meeting on Systems Biology, the RECOMB Satellite Meeting on Regulatory Genomics, and the DREAM Project into one event, our goal was to facilitate conversation among researchers with expertise in both computational and experimental sciences about the latest approaches for dissecting regulatory networks and modeling biological processes. The response has been truly remarkable, and this year's program reflects the increasing maturity of the field.

We're looking forward to a very impressive set of presentations and hope that you will be able to join us.

Best wishes,

Andrea Califano, Manolis Kellis, Sylvia Plevritis, and Gustavo Stolovitzky
Conference Chairs

Rocky 2012 Registration Reminder

December 6 - 8 , 2012, Snowmass/Aspen, Colorado, USA

Dear ISCB Members and Colleagues,

The 10th Annual Rocky Mountain Bioinformatics Conference is now less than two months away. Over the last decade this conference series has grown into an international program with a spotlight on regional development in the computational biosciences. Invited and accepted presenters represent a broad spectrum of universities, industrial enterprises, government laboratories, and medical libraries from around the world. The meeting is a chance to get to know your colleagues near and far, seek collaborative opportunities, and find synergies that can drive our field forward.

EARLY REGISTRATION DATE IS APPROACHING: Be sure to take advantage of early registration rates while they last. If you are not a current member consider joining ISCB now for immediate additional savings on your conference registration to this and any other ISCB conference. Please note that accepted presenters must register at applicable conference attendee rates by November 6 in order to give a presentation at Rocky 2012.

Register Here Now
Early Registration Deadline: November 8, 2012

 ACCOMMODATIONS SELLING OUT: The conference has moved to the new Viceroy Snowmass Hotel this year. A special group rate has been negotiated for Rocky 2012 attendees: $105 single or $140 double occupancy, plus tax. As rooms are booking up fast be sure to book yours before these special rates are no longer accessible. You must enter the group code of Rocky2012 to secure rooms at the special rate (if linking to the online hotel booking form from the conference website, double check that the correct code auto fills - if it fills as ISCB2012 please manually correct it as that code is an error and may not result in presenting the deeply discounted group rate).

Access Full Hotel Details Here

Until November 8th the Rocky conference offers a special Academic Retreat package for groups attending from the same lab or school, including a free student registration. Forward this invitation to your colleagues and collaborators and come for a lab retreat in addition to attending for the great science and networking.

We look forward to your participation!

Sincerely,

The Rocky 2012 Conference Organizing Team

GLBIO 2013 Call for Papers, Highlights, Flash Presentations and Posters

Dear ISCB Members, Colleagues, and Past GLBIO Attendees,

The Great Lakes Bioinformatics Conference is ISCB's annual event focused on providing an interdisciplinary forum for the discussion of research findings and methods within the North American Great Lakes region. The conference fosters long-term relationships, provides networking opportunities for researchers from within the region, and creates a collaborative environment for participants from around the world. The 2013 program has been retooled with new elements that will increase the opportunities to present research at many different stages of development. GLBIO will kick off with tutorials, and include a full program of keynotes, selected original research presentations, highlights of published works, flash presentations, and posters. Your participation is encouraged!

ALL CALLS FOR PRESENTATIONS ARE NOW OPEN:

Original Research Papers (Proceedings) Deadline: Jan 14, 2013

Highlight Presentations (previously published papers) Deadline: Jan 14, 2013

Flash Presentations (abstracts) Deadline: Jan 14, 2013

Poster Presentations (abstracts) Deadline: March 22, 2013

GLBIO topic areas include: Algorithm Development & Machine Learning; Databases and Ontologies; Text Mining & Natural Language Processing; Bioimage Analysis; Biological Networks; Chemical Biology; Clinical Informatics & Epidemiology; Disease Models & Molecular Medicine; Evolutionary, Comparative, and Meta-Genomics, Gene Regulation & Transcriptomics; Mass Spectrometry & Proteomics; Personalized Genetics and Genomics: Exome, Genome, Transcriptome; RNA & Protein: Structure, Modification, Localizations, Interaction, Function.

This year's keynote presenters exemplify the diversity of the field within this region: Ivet Bahar of University of Pittsburgh; Ziv Bar-Joseph of Carnegie Mellon University (and recipient of the 2012 ISCB Overton Prize); Jing Li of Case Western Reserve University; and Isidore Rigoutsos of Thomas Jefferson University.

We hope you will consider submitting today. Please also help spread the word by sharing this with your colleagues and collaborators. We very much look forward to welcoming you to Pittsburgh next May!

Sincerely,

Bruce Aronow, Elodie Ghedin, and Russell Schwartz

GLBIO 2013 Conference Chairs

National Centers for Biomedical Computing (NCBC) Showcase

Dear Colleague:

Learn about the activities and impact of the NIH Common Fund’s National Centers for Biomedical Computing (NCBC) at a meeting on November 8-9, 2012 in the Natcher Conference Center (Building 45), Ruth L. Kirschtein Auditorium.  The meeting will be opened by Dr. Francis Collins.  In addition Dr. James Anderson will present opening remarks about the NIH Common Fund.  Registration is not required; see http://meetings.nigms.nih.gov/meetings/ncbc/ for an agenda and details.
 
Please share this information with colleagues who may be interested in attending.
 
Program Summary:  The National Centers for Biomedical Computing (NCBCs) are intended to be part of the national infrastructure in Biomedical Informatics and Computational Biology.  The consortium portal is www.ncbcs.org.   There are eight Centers that cover biophysical modeling, biomedical ontologies, information integration, tools for gene-phenotype and disease analysis, systems biology, image analysis, and health information modeling and analysis. The centers create innovative software programs and other tools that enable the biomedical community to integrate, analyze, model, simulate, and share data on human health and disease. Each Center has Cores that are focused on (i) biomedical computational science and (ii) driving biological projects (DBPs) with the intent to drive the interaction between computational and biomedical computational science. There are numerous efforts in education and training that emanate from the Centers and there is an annual all hands meeting.  In addition to the Centers, the NIH and other government agencies have a number of funding announcements that are summarized in the Biomedical Information Science and Technology Initiative (BISTI) Funding Page.  This also includes a program for Collaborations with National Centers for Biomedical Computing.  Under the collaborations program, over the course of the program 225 applications for funding have been reviewed at NIH and 33 have been awarded.
 
This meeting is the culmination of the Year of Outreach which has so far included a special session at the Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology (ISMB) meeting 2012 in Long Beach on July 16 that focused on NCBC accomplishments.  In addition, a set of special articles was published in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association (JAMIA).
 
The main goal of the meeting is to showcase not only the research, training, and outreach in biocomputational science but also highlight the impact that the program has on other researchers and users.  The impact of this meeting is expected to be the lasting connections that are built up between programs in biomedical computing and computational biology at NIH.
 
Unfortunately, we cannot provide travel funds for this meeting. The meeting will not be videocast.
 
On behalf of the NCBC Project Team,
 
Peter Lyster, PhD, Program Director, Division of Biomedical Technology, Bioinformatics, and Computational Biology, NIH/NIGMS