ISMB 2016 - About Us

The annual international conference on Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology (ISMB) is the major meeting of the International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB). Over the past 23 years the ISMB conference has grown to become the world's largest bioinformatics/computational biology conference. ISMB 2016 will be the year's most important computational biology event globally.

The conferences provide a multidisciplinary forum for disseminating the latest developments in bioinformatics/computational biology. ISMB brings together scientists from computer science, molecular biology, mathematics, statistics and related fields. Its principal focus is on the development and application of advanced computational methods for biological problems. ISMB 2016 offers the strongest scientific program and the broadest scope of any international bioinformatics/computational biology conference. Building on past successes, the conference is designed to cater to variety of disciplines within the bioinformatics/computational biology community.

ISMB 2016 takes place July 8 - 12 at the Swan and Dolphin Hotel in Orlando, Florida, United States. For two days preceding the conference, additional opportunities including Satellite Meetings, Student Council Symposium, and a selection of Special Interest Group Meetings and Applied Knowledge Exchange Sessions (AKES) are all offered to enable registered participants to learn more on the latest methods and tools within specialty research areas.

Søren Brunak

Accomplishments by a Senior Scientist Award

University of Copenhagen & Technical University of Denmark

Presentation Title: Creating disease trajectories of time-ordered comorbidities from big biomedical data covering millions of patients
Time: Tuesday, July 12th, 4:40 pm - 5:40 pm
Introduction by: Pierre Baldi
Room: Northern Hemisphere BCD, Dolphin Hotel

Abstract:

Compared to the initial expectation human beings are gene-poor organisms. Many genes and pathways are likely to play a role in more than one disease, and numerous examples of gene pleiotropy and protein multi-functionality presumably await discovery. This situation contributes to the recent interest in clinical healthcare sector data and their accounts of fine-grained multi-morbidities. Patient record data remain a rather unexplored, but potentially rich data source for discovering correlations between diseases, drugs and genetic information in individual patients. A fundamental question in establishing biomarker-phenotype relationships is the basic definition of phenotypic categories. As an alternative to the conventional case-control, single disease model the talk will describe attempts to create phenotyoic categories and patient stratification based on longitudinal data covering long periods of time. We carry out temporal analysis of clinical data in a more life-course oriented fashion. We use data covering 6-7 million patients from Denmark collected over a 20 year period and use them to “condense” millions of individual trajectories into a smaller set of recurrent ones. This set of trajectories can be interpreted as re-defined phenotypes representing a temporal diseaseome as opposed to a static one computed from non-directional comorbidities only. A special case is represented by disease co-occurrences which are treatment provoked, e.g. adverse drug reactions. An important issue is to resolve whether specific adverse drug reactions relate to variation in the individual genome of a patient, to drug/environment cocktail effects, or both. From patient records ADR profiles of approved drugs can be constructed using drug-ADR networks, or alternatively patients can be stratified from their ADR profiles and compared. This type of work can potentially gain importance in projects involving population-wide genome sequencing in the future.

Biography:

Søren Brunak, Ph.D., is professor of Disease Systems Biology at the University of Copenhagen and professor of Bioinformatics at the Technical University of Denmark. He is Research Director at the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Protein Research at the University of Copenhagen Medical School. He leads a research effort where molecular level systems biology data are combined with the analysis of phenotypic data from the healthcare sector, such as electronic patient records, registry information and biobank questionnaires. A major aim is to understand the network basis for comorbidities and discriminate between treatment related disease correlations and other comorbidities, thereby stratifying patients not only from their genotype, but also phenotypically based on the clinical descriptions in their medical records. Prof. Brunak started work within bioinformatics in the mid-1980ies, and was in 1993 the founding Director of the Center for Biological Sequence Analysis at DTU, which was formed as a multi-disciplinary research group of molecular biologists, biochemists, medical doctors, physicists, and computer scientists. The center offers a wide range of services at its web site, www.cbs.dtu.dk, including bioinformatics tools developed over the past 25 years.

Applied Knowledge Exchange Sessions - Saturday, July 11

• AKES 01: Clouds, Clusters, and Containers
• AKES 02: Community Efforts to Enable Scalable and Reproducible Analyses of Thousands of Cancer Genomes
• AKES 03: Synthetic Biology Open Language – standards, tools and guideline on managing both the functional design and the sequence details of your experiments
• AKES 04: Living on the Edge (of Translational Informatics) - Opportunities and Challenges for Integrating Bioinformatics into the Clinical Realm
• AKES 05: Cytoscape 3 User Tutorial: Introduction to network visualization and analysis using Cytoscape

Better tools enable new discoveries; it is as true for computation as it is for experiment. Computing has been a pervasive part of scientific research across disciplines for a while, but as computational requirements increasingly exceed the capabilities of single workstations, the pressure is mounting for researchers to develop a new skillset and leverage a new toolset.

This workshop addresses the challenges and requirements for working effectively on cloud computing and high performance computing resources, discusses the key principles that should guide responsible scientific computation and collaboration, and using hands-on sessions presents practical solutions using emergent software tools that are becoming widely adopted in the global scientific community. Specifically, we will look at using “containers” to bundle software applications and their full execution environment in a portable way. We will look at managing and sharing data across distributed resources. And finally, we will tackle how to orchestrate job execution across systems and capture metadata on the results (and the process) so that parameters and methodologies are not lost. And perhaps the most important part, we will not be using the command line to achieve this.

• Build Containers – Like gift wrapping for code, it makes any scrappy workflow more socially acceptable. Containers let you (and everyone else) run your workflows almost anywhere and get the same answers.
• Use Science APIs – Once your workflows are containerized, Science APIs are the key to bending all computers to your will. It is perhaps the most powerful way to collaborate, capture metadata, orchestrate workflows, share data, and scale compute power.
• Publish responsibly – Capturing computational workflows only in the methods section of a paper or by posting source code is woefully insufficient now. Why not let your reviewers repeat your calculations with a few clicks?

Presenters

Maximum Attendees: 30

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The stated purpose of the AKES Presentations is to instruct attendees in "cutting-edge" bioinformatics subjects. Towards this aim, we propose a presentation focused on current efforts to enable global-scale analyses of thousands of cancer genomes. In order to perform coordinated analyses of large volumes of cancer data while reliably and identifying the variations that contribute to cancer, the research community has coalesced on a set of portable tools, data sharing practices, and reproducible analyses. Concretely, this workshop will focus on 1) recent efforts around coordinated analysis of thousands of cancer genomes and 2) tools such as dynamic computing, Docker, and the Common Workflow Language, and how these are being used to enable scalable and reproducible cancer informatics. By learning about the tools, best practices, and how these tools are being used in to enable efforts by the Global Alliance for Genomic Health (GA4GH) and the International Cancer Genome Consortium, attendees will gain an appreciation and understanding of the current state of large scale cancer informatics. Further, we hope to encourage discussion about unmet needs in cancer medicine and future solutions in addition to instruction.

Reproducibility remains a major concern in biomedical research. Recently, it has been demonstrated that cancer informatics analyses performed within a single consortia may yield wildly variable results. As the collection of genomic data and analyses continue to accelerate, concerns about maintaining the accuracy of results continues to grow. Large­scale, accurate cancer analyses demand scalable informatics. Scalability in turn requires reproducibility and portability of tools, analyses, and data to ensure that researchers can collaborate easily and effectively. Recent technological developments and organizational efforts have sought to address the reproducibility problem in biomedical data analysis and have been successfully applied to cancer informatics. For example, Docker containers enable researchers to package software with all of its required dependencies and nothing more. This feature allows software to be shared with anyone in such a way that the exact analysis can be reproduced. Docker containers can be easily shared through GitHub, third party repositories, or user to user with plain text files. Moreover, external tools can hook into Docker directly, using it as a component of complex pipelines or analyses. The Common Workflow Language (CWL) is one specification, which enables researchers to describe analysis tools and workflows that are powerful, easy, and portable. Dynamic computing environments, often referred to as ‘the cloud’, are able to support co­localization of cancer data, Docker+CWL workflows, and the computational resources required to perform large scale analyses. These environments can be extended with collaboration and project management tools to enable researchers to work together in a transparent and reproducible fashion. These methodologies have enabled global scale cancer genomics initiatives such as the International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) PanCancer Analysis for Whole Genomes Project (PCAWG), and the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Cancer Genomics Cloud (CGC) pilot program. In this workshop, we will instruct attendees in Docker and CWL as well as their use and best practices, and discuss concretely how these technologies enable scalable, reproducible, and portable cancer informatics. We will also discuss the methodologies behind how these tools are developed and deployed and pose the following questions what are next steps for improving reproducibility in bioinformatics and scale informatics efforts? What have we learned from analyses of thousands of cancer genomes that can be applied to other diseases and other consortium efforts? In addition, we will encourage discussion about unmet needs and future solutions in cancer informatics.

Organizer

Gaurav Kaushik

Presenters

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Synthetic biology is the creation of new living systems using programmable DNA, RNA, and protein components. The applications of synthetic biology are exciting, wide-ranging, and potentially transformative, but engineering biosystems is no easy task. Consequently, projects often require interdisciplinary collaboration between synthetic biologists with specialized domains of expertise. The design cycle often consists of distinct stages carried out by appropriate experts, such as design of novel biopolymer sequences, sequence assembly and synthesis, biosimulation, and quality control of synthesized sequences.

In this session, we will introduce participants to the Synthetic Biology Open Language (SBOL). SBOL is a data standard that enables collaborative science and integrated workflows for synthetic biology. We will demonstrate one of these workflows and provide hands-on instruction with featured software tools

The SBOL standard has been developed through an open and inclusive process involving diverse members of the synthetic biology community. Originally SBOL was developed to capture the hierarchical organization of recombinant DNA sequence constructs. Now in its second version SBOL can describe both the structural and functional semantics of biosystems. In addition SBOL supports descriptions of a wide range of biomolecular sequences and species, including CRISPR and TAL effectors. During our session, we will present a number of use cases that illustrate SBOL’s expressive capability and compare it to other bioinformatics standards. We hope to encourage others to use SBOL in their own projects, as well as to discuss areas where SBOL can be further improved to support use cases provided by participants with experimental backgrounds.

• Learn about software tools that support different stages of the synthetic biology design cycle. If you are a synthetic biologist, we hope you will discover at least one new tool applicable to your specific domain of interest.
• Get hands-on with tools for computer-aided design (SBOLDesigner), gene circuit engineering (iBioSim), and design knowledgebases in the cloud (SBOLStack). You will forward engineer the dynamic behavior of a simple gene circuit and design its DNA sequence using off-the-shelf parts from the Stack.
• Learn how to read and write SBOL files using our open-source libraries, including C++, Java, Python, and JavaScript implementations
• Learn how and why you should join standard development efforts like SBOL standards-development. You’ll learn about integrated workflows for synthetic biology that are possible with SBOL. We’ll also discuss interoperability with other standards like SBML for biosimulation and DiCOM-SB for experimental measurement.

Organizer

Presenters

Maximum Attendees: 40

Delegate Requirements: Please bring a laptop. Featured software tools require a JVM or Python 2.7.
Session participants need only have a general knowledge of synthetic biology. Participants hoping to work with one of our libraries should have some prior development knowledge although we will keep this at an introductory level.

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Bioinformatics tools and techniques are becoming an essential component of clinical care, yet integrating these new modalities into clinical practice remains a challenge. From molecular diagnostics to pharmacogenomics to molecular pathology and molecular medicine, it is increasingly critical for there to be integration between the bioinformaticians performing the analyses and the clinicians interpreting and acting on the results. This session will focus on these interfaces, with particular attention to the tools, systems, and processes required for an efficient transition “from bench to bedside.” The speakers all have experience working on both sides of this imaginary divide and will provide insights into driving discovery into the clinic. It is expected that the audience member will gain a more in depth understanding of the issues facing data scientists and clinicians alike. Dr. Russ Altman will moderate the session and introduce each speaker using relevant examples from the literature. Speakers will cover topics ranging from an overview of bioinformatics techniques used in clinical practice to the ethics and legal implications of genomic testing. Anyone working at the interface of genomics and medicine will find this session useful and informative.

Agenda

Each session is slated for 30 minutes and will include five minutes of questions.

Maximum Attendees: 50

Delegate Requirements: Attendees will benefit from prior experience with bioinformatics or computational biology, especially in the field of cancer. This session will serve as a suitable introduction to dynamic computing, Docker, Common Workflow Language, and the broader subject of reproducible analyses. Hands on demos of publicly available software will be conducted so attendees are encouraged to bring their laptops.

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The network perspective on biology aims to bring meaningful context to high-throughput data for exploratory analysis, interpretation and hypothesis generation. As a free and open source tool, Cytoscape has become the most popular network visualization and analysis tools in the biological sciences. It is now cited in over 600 publications per year and downloaded 14,000 times per month. This workshop will provide a general introduction to network biology studies and Cytoscape concepts, including a hands-on session for universal data import and demonstration of a few of the over 250 freely available apps contributed by the Cytoscape developer community.

Learning Objectives

• Import any tabular data into Cytoscape
• Integrate your data with public sources of networks, pathways and other datasets
• Master network layout and data visualization

Presenters

Maximum Attendees: 30

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Workshop 1 (WK01): Junior Principal Investigator Sessions

Attention Conference Presenters - please review the Speaker Information Page available here.

Sunday, July 10, 10:10 am – 4:30 pm

Organizers:

Manuel Corpas, The Genome Analysis Center, Norwich, United Kingdom
Lucia Peixoto, Washington State University, Spokane, United States
Geoff Macintyre, Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute, United Kingdom

Coffee Break (11:10 - 11:40 am)

ISMB 2016 - Call for Applied Knowledge Exchange Sessions (AKES)

Chair: Michelle Brazas, Ontario Institute for Cancer Research (OICR), Canada
Co-chair: Fran Lewitter, Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, United States
Co-chair: Patricia M. Palagi, SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, Switzerland

**Call for AKES Submissions - Opens November 3, 2015

 
This call is an open invitation to scientists and professionals working in the fields of bioinformatics and computational biology to submit high quality proposals for Applied Knowledge Exchange sessions (formerly called Tutorials and Workshops) at ISMB2016.

A list of AKES presented in 2015 is available here. 

The purpose of this program is to provide participants with information and instruction covering "cutting-edge" topics relevant to the bioinformatics field. For research-oriented topics, these sessions offer participants an opportunity to get an introduction to important established topics in bioinformatics, to learn about new areas of bioinformatics research, or to develop advanced skills in areas about which they are already knowledgeable. These do not necessarily need to be primarily research oriented, but may also serve to bring together people with common interests to discuss, debate and problem-solve defined topics.  

Applied Knowledge Exchange sessions may include any form of presentation such as brief talks or panel discussions. They serve an educational function and are expected to provide a balanced perspective on a field of research. They should not focus on the presenters' own research or software, unless balanced with other tools in the same realm. Sessions on broadly used bioinformatics tools (UCSC, Galaxy, Cytoscape, etc.) will be considered. Please note that if you wish to focus your talk on a specific software package less widely used, your proposal should be submitted to the Technology Track.

Sessions should be designed as half-day (four hour) or full-day (8 hours) sessions. (A 30-minute break is scheduled for 10:15 am and 3:30 pm). Only proposals providing either:

• Direct practical, hands-on application of the subject matter; or
• Bringing together people with common interest for discussion will be considered for acceptance.

Potential topic areas may include but are not limited to the following: (A list of AKES presented in 2015 is available here)

• Unsolved problems: Debate on the future hot areas for bioinformatics
• Powerful features in the UCSC Genome Browser
• Practical exercises in GATK
• Translational informatics: Opportunities for bioinformatics in the clinical realm
• Galaxy: Toolshed development
• Improving genomic assembly with PacBio
• Assembly of genomes in metagenomics

Proposal submissions should be received by Monday, January 25, 2016. Proposals should not exceed a maximum of 4 pages, and must include a detailed description of the session content. You will be asked during the submission process to provide a description of the session that can be used to promote it to delegates. 

Proposals should contain the following information:

• Title
• Goals, objectives and motivation of the session
• Schedule of the session including coffee breaks
• Detailed outline of the session agenda
• Please adhere to the page limit, but provide sufficient information for a thorough evaluation to be made.
• Intended audience and level
• It should be clearly and precisely indicated at whom the session is aimed, and at which level it would be taught with respect to the different underlying scientific fields. In particular if any background (biology, algorithmics, statistics, etc) is expected, this should be very precisely described.
• Where appropriate, indicate whether the material is considered Introductory, Intermediate or Advanced or Broad Interest.
• Organizers & Presenters (where appropriate)
• Each session should have a minimum of two organizers and/or presenters. Based on feedback received from earlier years, please note that in general graduate students are not permitted to participate as instructors.
• A brief description of the organizers indicating the relevant qualifications to the proposal.
• Where appropriate, a brief description of the presenters indicating the relevant qualifications and teaching experience. Session attendees often consider the reputation and standing of the presenters as one of their criteria for choosing particular sessions.
• Session history
• Please indicate whether the session has been presented at ISMB (or another meeting) previously.
• A brief reasoning for the value of this session to ISMB attendees at this time.

Proposals must be completed using the MS Word templates provided. The final proposal MUST be uploaded as a PDF file only. When using the MS Word template, please ensure you convert it to a PDF before uploading. Submissions should be completed through this link.

All submissions will be evaluated by a committee, which will consider the following criteria:

• Relevance, interest, and value of the topic to ISMB attendees
• Completeness, clarity, and quality of the proposal and materials including schedule of session
• Expertise and experience of the presenters in the proposed topic
• Expertise and experience of the organizers in delivering a successful educational experience
• Effectiveness of the proposed presentation approach
• If the session has been presented previously the participant evaluations will be considered

Session Materials

The presenters agree to provide participants with teaching materials that include:

• Copies of the slides in Powerpoint or PDF format for review and posting online.
• Copies of relevant articles/book chapters published by the presenters may be provided as Supplementary Information. Presenters will have to obtain copyright permission from their publishers, as required.
• Voice-over presentation recordings of AKES sessions: AKES programs will be recorded (using voice over presentatuion software) to serve as online learning tools following the conference. All presenters must agree to allow ISCB to post these recording of the AKES program as a requirement of acceptance. Examples of past recordings can be viewed here.

Copyright

The authors will grant copyright to session materials to the ISCB for a period to extend from acceptance through August 1, 2016, and they agree that their materials may be made available for use in perpetuity through ISCB.

Compensation

Each session team will be provided:

• Free * AKES* registration for team members presenting the session (ISMB 2016 full conference registration is NOT included)
• 1 x US$500 honorarium
  
  

Proposal Submission

Click here to complete a submission for AKES.
Proposal Template - MS Word

Call for Highlights - ISMB 2016

Call for Highlights Submission Site: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=ismb2016 Opens December 14, 2015

ISMB 2016 brings together Bioinformaticians and Computational Biologists working in a wide range of disciplines, including molecular biology, biology, medicine, computer science, mathematics and statistics. Papers that demonstrate both the development of new computational techniques and their application to Molecular and Systems Biology, with significant outcomes to biomedical, agricultural, and environmental questions are especially encouraged.

Highlights Track: About
Highlights Track: Deadlines
Highlights Track: Review Criteria
Highlights Track: Submission Guidelines

We invite the submission of full papers that have been published, or accepted for publication, between January 1, 2015 and the submission deadline, March 11, 2016. Publications that are "in press" and already linked on the journal web site by March 11, 2016 are also welcome. Accepted presenters for the Highlights Track are required to make the presentation themselves, and must register and pay to attend the conference and the presenter should identify themselves as the corresponding author during the submission process.

The presentation of talks at ISMB is by thematic area. Oral presentations from accepted submissions from Highlights, Proceedings and Late Breaking Research will be presented by theme area. A listing of Theme Chairs is available here.

• Data:
  Applied Bioinformatics
  Bioimaging
  Databases, Ontologies, & Text Mining
  
  
• Disease:
  Disease Models & Epidemiology
  
  
• Genes:
  Evolution and Comparative Genomics (genes/genomes)
  Gene Regulation
  RNA Bioinformatics
  Sequence Analysis (genes)
  
  
• Proteins:
  Evolution and Comparative Genomics (proteins)
  Protein Interactions & Molecular Networks (protein interactions)
  Protein Structure & Function
  Sequence Analysis (proteins)
  
  
• Systems:
  Population Genomics
  Protein Interactions & Molecular Networks (molecular networks)
  
  

Submitters will choose the track area best suited for their paper during submission.

All papers published in peer-reviewed journals (no book chapters) between January 1, 2015 and March 11, 2016 are eligible to be presented as talks. Papers in press are acceptable only if already available through the journal web site. Note that presenters are be encouraged to also present more recent work, however, that work will not be considered in the decision. Up to 2 papers can be submitted as one single PDF if the authors intend to present the results of multiple qualifying papers.

Acceptance notifications will be sent no later than Friday, April 22, 2016.

The selected Highlights will be presented in thematic tracks that run in parallel at the conference. All presentations should be no longer than 15 minutes and will be followed by a maximum of 3-minute discussions. Presenters should focus on the chosen paper(s), and are encouraged to include more recent results.

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All submissions will be evaluated by a group of Area Chairs and Program Committee according to the following criteria:

1. Relevance, interest, and value of the topic to conference attendees,
2. Impact of the paper(s) on biology/medicine (while the impact of papers on science is not fully reflected by ISI/Google-like impact factors or high number of downloads, high values in such factors will clearly stand as a strong argument for acceptance),
3. "Presentability" of the work to a large, diverse audience,
4. Quality of oral presentations by the submitter (if known),
5. Submissions that permit the presentation of related interesting unpublished new results will be viewed favorably.

These "soft" criteria attempt to capture the underlying goal of the Highlights Track, namely the presentation of exciting and thought-provoking seminars that will both contribute to the success of the conference and to the impact the meeting has on advancing computational biology and bioinformatics.

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PDF files of the papers including the 250-word Scientific Justification and a 150-word presentation description (This should be shown as the Abstract when submitting through EasyChair) must be submitted through the submission system by March 11, 2016 (midnight by any time zone). No exceptions will be allowed.

Submissions should include the following:

• For each presenter only one submission to the Highlights Track will be reviewed (the LAST will be taken by default). The same limitation applies for the last author (group). Publications can be grouped if it becomes clear how different publications will be combined in a talk. The maximal number of submissions per author/co-author is 5.
• Name/affiliation/email of submitter (assumed to be the presenter; note that the presenter cannot be changed because the identity and ability to present of that person will be an essential selection criterion).
• Names/affiliations/email of ALL coauthors (note: any name appearing on a published paper has to be added here). Note that all co-authors have to agree to the submission. It is the responsibility of the submitter to guarantee that all co-author email addresses are correct (email notifications of the submission will be sent to all co-authors).
• 150 word description of the presentation for promotion on conference website. (This should be shown as the Abstract when submitting through EasyChair)
• Additional contact information (for presenter).
• 250-word limited justification-like argument that explains the impact and importance of this work.
• Sources of original publication(s) (Year, Journal, Vol., pages).
• PDF with paper(s) (note: in case of the submission of 2 papers, both should be merged into one single PDF; all reviews will be based on the content of this PDF).
• Optional: link to Google Video demonstrating presentation skills of presenter.
• Only PDF submissions are acceptable. It is the responsibility of the submitter to verify that the PDF is completely viewable/printable by all major operating systems (LINUX, MacOS, Windows).
  
  

All questions pertaining to the Highlights Track should be directed to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

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Call for Proposals: Special Interest Groups and Satellite Meetings - ISMB 2016

Chair: Christine Orengo, University College London, United Kingdom
Co-chair: Alan Christoffels, University of Western Cape, South Africa

** Submissions - Submissions close October 9, 2015
** Download SIG Guidelines
** Download Satellite Meeting Guidelines

We invite you to submit a proposal to organize a Special Interest Group (SIG) or Satellite Meeting (SM) at ISMB 2016 conference, which will be held at the Swan and Dolphin Hotel, Orlando, United States, July 8 and 9, 2016.

Submissions should be submitted via the online submission system here by October 9, 2015.

A SIG meeting is a one- or two-day focused workshop. It should provide a broad and/or deep perspective on developments in a field of research, and is intended as a way to address a topic more extensively than can be done in the main conference.

A Satellite Meeting is similar to a SIG meeting but has logistical or financial needs that do not fit conveniently into the SIG structure. Satellite Meeting proposals will be considered along with SIG proposals. SIG delegates will not be able to attend Satellite Meeting sessions and vice versa, and handout materials will be separate as well.

Follow these links to see examples of previous SIGs and SMs:

ISMB/ECCB 2015 (Dublin)
ISMB 2014 (Boston)
ISMB/ECCB 2013 (Berlin)

In order to facilitate conference organization, these deadlines will be adhered to strictly.

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SIG and Satellite Meetings will be held during the two days prior to the main conference: Friday and Saturday, July 8 and July 9. On the first day, SIGs will be held in parallel with the Student Council Symposium; on the second day, with the conference Applied Knowledge Exchange Sessions (AKES). Participants will register for a primary SIG and will be free to circulate between parallel sessions only on the day of the meeting(s) they are registered for.

Proposals should indicate a preference for which days its meeting will be held if submitting a one-day only proposal; the organizers will try to respect these preferences but do not guarantee that all SIGs will receive their preferences.

SIG organizers are responsible for the scientific content of the SIG meeting. They may invite speakers, publish a call for submissions, or use a combination. They are expected to operate within the context of ISMB procedures, including finalizing the program and providing materials by the deadlines, working within the budget, etc.

Delegates to all SIG meetings will receive handouts from all SIG meetings, to facilitate movement between sessions. The handouts may be available in electronic form and/or printed form - this will be confirmed at a later date.

Organizers will collect and prepare handout materials. They are responsible for ensuring that the material that they submit may be legally used and that appropriate copyright permissions have been arranged. Speakers are expected to grant permission to ISMB to copy and distribute these materials, including making them available for sale.

SIG organizers should consider hosting and maintaining a SIG website.

Please pay particular attention to the deadlines for submitting the program of speakers and the handout materials (in electronic form). SIG participation is much more effective when delegates can view the schedules on the web ahead of the meeting and when they receive the handouts from all SIGs together.

ISCB will handle the logistics of holding the SIG meeting in conjunction with ISMB 2016 and will take the financial risk for holding the meeting. This includes managing registration, promoting the meeting, preparing delegate handouts from the provided materials, providing a room and audio-visual services (Internet access, projector & screen, microphones, etc.), and supplying food and beverages for breaks and lunches.

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SM organizers are responsible for the scientific content of the meeting. They may invite speakers, publish a call for submissions, or use a combination. They are expected to operate within the context of ISMB procedures, including finalizing the program and providing materials by the deadlines, working within the budget, etc.

SM organizers are, in addition, responsible for the financial and contractual obligations of the meeting. They are therefore responsible for signing and accepting responsibility for all contracts regarding arrangements for their meeting, including venue, catering, printing, etc., and any deposits required for these contracts. Contracts shall be in the name of the SM or the organizer’s host institution, and signed by an authorized SM organizer. This requirement applies whether or not the SM uses ISCB’s meeting-planning services.

Organizers will collect and prepare handout materials. They are responsible for ensuring that the material that they submit may be legally used and that appropriate copyright permissions have been arranged. Speakers are expected to grant permission to ISMB to copy and distribute these materials, including making them available for sale.

SM organizers should consider hosting and maintaining a SM website.

Please pay particular attention to the deadlines for submitting the program of speakers and the handout materials (in electronic form). Delegate participation is much more effective when delegates can view the schedules on the Web ahead of the meeting.

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The following documents contain more details about organizing SIGs and SMs. If this webpage conflicts with one of these documents, the document overrides the webpage. Please read the relevant documents carefully.

If you are unsure whether your meeting is best held as a SIG or SM, please review the document “Is my meeting a SIG or a Satellite Meeting?”.

If you are proposing to organize a SIG, please review the document “SIG details.”

If you are proposing to organize an SM, please review the document “Satellite details.”

Please prepare your proposal in accordance with the instructions from the relevant document in the “For more detailed information” section. The entire proposal should be no more than four pages long.

Proposals should be submitted in Acrobat (.pdf) format. Name the file using the family name of the first organizer (i.e., John Doe's proposal should be in a file named doe.pdf).

Submit proposals here by Friday, October 9, 2015

• Proposals will be evaluated by the Special Interest Group committee.
  
  The following criteria will be considered:
  
  • Relevance and interest of the proposed program to attendees;
  • Relevant expertise and experience of the organizers;
  • Effectiveness of the proposed SIG meeting organization;
  • Clarity, quality, and completeness of the proposal.
  
  
• Contact information

Please contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. with any questions.

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EXHIBITORS & SPONSORS

ISMB/ECCB 2017 attracts top international scientists and key decision makers in the life sciences – experts in areas such as computer science, molecular biology and medicine, mathematics and statistics – from the world's largest and most prestigious research institutions and companies.

ISMB/ECCB 2017 is expected to attract scientific leaders from over 50 countries – that’s 50 markets!

Sponsorship options have been designed for every budget level and customized packages can be arranged as a flexible solution for your marketing requirements.

Join us and take full advantage of this opportunity to enhance your organization's visibility, expand your network of prospects, meet up with your current clients and positively impact your bottom line sales!