Leading Professional Society for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics
Connecting, Training, Empowering, Worldwide

UPCOMING DEADLINES & NOTICES

  • Confirmation of Participation notices sent
    GLBIO 2024
    April 15, 2024
  • Late poster author notification
    RECOMB 2024
    April 19, 2024
  • Late registration deadline
    RECOMB 2024
    April 19, 2024
  • Last day for presenting and poster authors to complete registration *no extensions*
    GLBIO 2024
    April 22, 2024
  • Late poster submissions open (posters only)
    ISMB 2024
    April 22, 2024
  • Talks and posters submissions deadline
    ECCB 2024
    April 23, 2024
  • Registration deadline for organisers and speakers
    ECCB 2024
    April 30, 2024
  • Last day to upload ANY/ALL files to the virtual Platform
    GLBIO 2024
    May 06, 2024
  • Acceptance notification for talks and posters
    ECCB 2024
    May 08, 2024
  • Tech track proposal deadline (closes earlier if capacity is reached)
    ISMB 2024
    May 10, 2024
  • Early bird registration opens
    APBJC 2024
    May 10, 2024
  • Talk and/or poster acceptance notifications
    ISMB 2024
    May 13, 2024
  • Conference fellowship invitations sent for early abstract accepted talks and posters
    ISMB 2024
    May 13, 2024
  • (Conditional) Acceptance notification for proceedings
    ECCB 2024
    May 15, 2024
  • Registration deadline for talk presenting authors
    ECCB 2024
    May 15, 2024
  • CAMDA extended abstracts deadline
    ISMB 2024
    May 20, 2024
  • Late poster submissions deadline
    ISMB 2024
    May 20, 2024
  • Conference fellowship application deadline
    ISMB 2024
    May 20, 2024
  • Revised paper deadline
    ECCB 2024
    May 25, 2024
  • Tech track acceptance notification
    ISMB 2024
    May 31, 2024
  • Last day for discounted student hotel booking
    ISMB 2024
    May 27, 2024
  • Late poster acceptance notifications
    ISMB 2024
    May 28, 2024
  • CAMDA acceptance notification
    ISMB 2024
    May 30, 2024
  • Complete workshop/tutorial programme with speakers and schedule online
    ECCB 2024
    May 30, 2024
  • Conference fellowship acceptance notification
    ISMB 2024
    May 31, 2024
  • Tech track presentation schedule posted
    ISMB 2024
    May 31, 2024
  • Final acceptance notification for proceedings
    ECCB 2024
    May 31, 2024

Upcoming Conferences

A Global Community

  • ISCB Student Council

    dedicated to facilitating development for students and young researchers

  • Affiliated Groups

    The ISCB Affiliates program is designed to forge links between ISCB and regional non-profit membership groups, centers, institutes and networks that involve researchers from various institutions and/or organizations within a defined geographic region involved in the advancement of bioinformatics. Such groups have regular meetings either in person or online, and an organizing body in the form of a board of directors or steering committee. If you are interested in affiliating your regional membership group, center, institute or network with ISCB, please review these guidelines (.pdf) and send your exploratory questions to Diane E. Kovats, ISCB Chief Executive Officer (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.).  For information about the Affilliates Committee click here.

  • Communities of Special Interest

    Topically-focused collaborative communities

  • ISCB Member Directory

    Connect with ISCB worldwide

  • Green ISCB

    Environmental Sustainability Effort

  • Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion

    ISCB is committed to creating a safe, inclusive, and equal environment for everyone

Professional Development, Training, and Education

ISCBintel and Achievements

ISCB Conference Recording Permissions

I understand that if selected to give an oral presentation of my research that my talk will be audio/video recorded during the conference. As the copyright holder to the research which I am submitting, I hereby agree that the audiovisual recording of my conference presentation shall be licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0. The Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY), of which CC-BY 4.0 is the most recent version, was developed to facilitate open access content. Open access content has to be freely available online, and through licensing my presentation under CC-BY, I grant the right to unrestricted dissemination and re-use of the audiovisual recording, with the single provision that proper attribution is given to the speaker in any case of distribution and/or reuse. No warranties are expressed or implied using the CC-BY licensing.

I understand that the online posting will list personal information (name, institution). I consent to allow ISCB to post this information in perpetuity and understand that I can ask to have the information removed at any time.

For more information on the CC-BY 4.0 license please see:https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
For the full license agreement please see: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode
Frequently Asked Questions: https://goo.gl/wFGVVi

About the Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology (ISMB) Conference

The annual international conference on Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology (ISMB) is the flagship meeting of the International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB). The 2020 conference is the 28th ISMB conference, which has grown to become the world's largest bioinformatics and computational biology conference. The conference takes place July 12-16, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, at the Palais des congrès de Montréal.

Bioinformatics and computational biology, an interdisciplinary field, combines biology, computer science, information engineering, mathematics and statistics to analyze and interpret biological data. Powered by a technological revolution, the life sciences currently generate massive datasets that require unique expertise in handling, processing and transferring information; in addition to the biological expertise. At the start of the data revolution in biology, experts in computation and biology came together to work collaborative to turn data into discoveries. Computational skills have become integral to the analysis of the large volumes of biomedical and agricultural data currently being generated in the life sciences, and to understanding complex biological systems. Conferences like ISMB play a critical role in the dissemination of research findings and information sharing. Enabling researchers to gather, learn, and collaborate will lead to the acceleration of science and the opportunity to make advances towards cures for disease, novel drug development, and personalized healthcare.

ISMB 2020 will provide an intense multidisciplinary forum for disseminating the latest developments in bioinformatics and computational biology. The conference fosters fresh dialogues, collaboration and learning opportunities, and is a gathering which shapes the future of the field. At the heart of the scientific program are the ISCB’s Communities of Special Interest (COSIs), enabling intensified community involvement and bolstering its reputation as a conference with strong scientific and technical program, which showcases the best international developments in the field. The open conference format retains key features, which have proven successful for more than 25 years. Each day of the four-day conference includes outstanding keynote lectures, technical talks, proceedings talks from the published conference proceedings in Bioinformatics, additional published and unpublished talks thematically organized in the COSI tracks, a variety of workshops, special sessions, equal opportunities activities, a students organized symposium, an exhibition hall, poster ignite talks, posters, and a career fair. The structure is intended to bring a new energy and flow to the conference by centering it thematically around the vibrant ISCB COSIs. Further, with the COSIs more central to the conference, networking within and between the scientific communities will be greatly enhanced.

ISMB 2020 is the premier conference in the field and a must attend event!

About the Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology (ISMB) Conference

The annual international conference on Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology (ISMB) is the flagship meeting of the International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB). The 2020 conference is the 28th ISMB conference, which has grown to become the world's largest bioinformatics and computational biology conference. The conference takes place virtually July 13-16, 2020 The virtual conference platform will feature live talks, pre-recorded sessions, a virtual exhibit hall, a virtual poster hall, on-demand talks and features that will allow the participants to interact while viewing the sessions including a Q&A feature.

Bioinformatics and computational biology, an interdisciplinary field, combines biology, computer science, information engineering, mathematics and statistics to analyze and interpret biological data. Powered by a technological revolution, the life sciences currently generate massive datasets that require unique expertise in handling, processing and transferring information; in addition to the biological expertise. At the start of the data revolution in biology, experts in computation and biology came together to work collaborative to turn data into discoveries. Computational skills have become integral to the analysis of the large volumes of biomedical and agricultural data currently being generated in the life sciences, and to understanding complex biological systems. Conferences like ISMB play a critical role in the dissemination of research findings and information sharing. Enabling researchers to gather, learn, and collaborate will lead to the acceleration of science and the opportunity to make advances towards cures for disease, novel drug development, and personalized healthcare.

ISMB 2020 will provide an intense multidisciplinary forum for disseminating the latest developments in bioinformatics and computational biology. The conference fosters fresh dialogues, collaboration and learning opportunities, and is a gathering which shapes the future of the field. At the heart of the scientific program are the ISCB’s Communities of Special Interest (COSIs), enabling intensified community involvement and bolstering its reputation as a conference with strong scientific and technical program, which showcases the best international developments in the field. The open conference format retains key features, which have proven successful for more than 25 years. Each day of the four-day conference includes outstanding keynote lectures, technical talks, proceedings talks from the published conference proceedings in Bioinformatics, additional published and unpublished talks thematically organized in the COSI tracks, a variety of workshops, special sessions, equal opportunities activities, a students organized symposium, an exhibition hall, posters, and a virtual career fair. The structure is intended to bring a new energy and flow to the conference by centering it thematically around the vibrant ISCB COSIs. Further, with the COSIs more central to the conference, networking within and between the scientific communities will be greatly enhanced.

ISMB 2020 is the premier conference in the field and a must attend event!

COSI Organizer Information Page

COSI TRACK BENEFITS
  • COSIs will still receive up to five complimentary registrations along with two additional registrations for those serving as COSI track moderators.

    Moderators will be asked to be present within the chat feature of their tracks over their scheduled talks. These registrations can be distributed to anyone at the discretion of the COSI.


    Provide Steven (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) the names and email of who will receive your complimentary registration by June 15.

  • Attendee Commissions - At the end of the conference, ISCB will calculate the COSI commissions.  Commissions are based on the number of registrations that identified your group as their main COSI. A registrant may select up to four COSIs if purchasing a full conference registration. A set commission rate is applied to each paid registrant and shared based on total percentage to the COSI.

    Unrestricted use of escrow funds to support COSI track speakers or additional events

  • Full allocation of any sponsorship raised by COSI to COSI escrows. Note: COSIs are responsible for fulfilling any benefit promised to a COSI only sponsor.  Sponsors wishing to participate in the exhibit hall will need to pay the conference exhibitor fees.

Abstract Submission Process
  • COSIs identify 2 or 3 Abstract Chairs (ACs) from within community to manage the review process. These names will be added to EasyChair as Track Chairs for each COSI.
  • COSI Abstract Chairs will be responsible for identifying a review / program committee to review the abstracts for both talk and poster presentation within their COSI. ACs will add these names to COSI track within EasyChair.
  • Each COSI is responsible for reviewing abstracts submitted to their area as either:
    • Poster only
    • Talk and poster (abstracts in this category if not accepted as a talk should be reviewed for a poster).
  • Ideally each abstract should have a minimum of two (2) reviews and preferably three (3).
  • COSI Abstracts Chairs are encouraged to quickly review the abstracts that are submitted to their COSI. If the abstract is not topical, please let Steven Leard (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) know and he can transfer the abstract to the appropriate COSI suggested by your COSI. We recognize abstracts may cross COSI themes. In the event that an abstract could fit in multiple theme, it will be considered first to the COSI for which the author has designated submission. If not selected for oral, it may be considered for another COSI track.
  • COSI Abstract Chairs responsible for notifying acceptances for talks and posters within COSI track.

    • Notifications should be sent by May 14
    • ISCB will pull the list of confirmed speakers from EasyChair on May 15 to send to the technology platform provider to provide instructions on how to record presentation.
    • Each speaker will need to sign permissions to be part of the online platform.
    • All presentations must be submitted to system NLT June 30.

  • Selected Abstract talks will be presented by COSI track and run in parallel at the conference.
  • The length of a talks are in units of 20 minutes (should includes time for questions).  Oral presentation times for abstracts are announced by the COSI track organizers.
  • COSI Area Chairs responsible for reviewing Late Posters to their COSI (opens May 4, closes, May 14) within individual COSIs. *Acceptance notifications sent May 28.
  • COSI Area Chairs responsible for awarding their own prizes - top poster prize winner name, affiliation and poster title should be sent to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. no later than 3:00 pm on Thursday July 16 so the name can be recognized during the closing ceremonies.
  • COSI Track Schedule

    • COSIs will provide their detailed track schedule by May 22 using the template provided by ISCB.
    • Track schedule will be loaded into the online platform and will be the guiding production schedule.
    • COSIs needs to indicate on the track schedule which talks will are live-stream or will have live Q&A, panels, or breakout room requirements.

     
    COSI Invited Talks

    • COSI Track Chairs will provide to ISCB their confirmed invited speakers by May 22.
    • ISCB will work with each invited speaker to conduct a training on how to use the system prior to the conference.

     
    Posters

    • All abstracts accepted to present posters will receive instruction from ISCB on how to enter their poster into the system.
      • ISCB will use the abstract, title, author list, as entered in EasyChair
      • Each poster entry will have PDF of poster and recording of presentation
      • ISCB will send instructions to each poster presenter

     
    Speaker Communication

    • ISCB will handle the communications with your speaker on how to:
      • Use the system if they are identified as live-stream
      • Record their presentation
      • Upload their presentation to the system
    • ISCB and the production team will check the pre-recorded talk to ensure length is correct and quality is good
    • It is expected that all speakers are registered for the conference. You can assign complimentary passes as you wish or cover additional passes from your COSI escrow.
    • ISCB also has a fellowship program if one is unable to pay. Fellowships are prioritized based on career level and income status of the country.

     
    Day of Logistics and Track Execution

    • COSIs will be responsible for monitoring their tracks on their scheduled day of broadcast.
      • Recommend to assign 2-3 individuals that will share the work on monitoring the track.
    • Each COSI will be assigned a production manager. That manager will manage the live-stream talks, activating the live Q&A of the speaker and moderator, opening breakout rooms under the guidance of the COSI, and playing the pre-recorded sessions.
      • The production manager will follow the pre-determined schedule.
      • COSI monitors are to ensure Q&A, panel, breakout rooms stay on schedule.
    • COSIs who wish to have their own group within Café Connect should notify Steven (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) by June 15.

Abstract Submission Keydates

Thursday, January 30, 2020

Call for Abstracts Opens

no later than Thursday, April 4, 2020

ACs have Program Committee (Reviewers invited and added to EasyChair) 

Thursday, April 30, 2020

Abstracts Submission Deadline (closes at 11:59 p.m. April 30, Eastern Daylight Time)

Monday, May 4, 2020

Late Poster Submissions Open

Friday, May 8, 2020

COSI Share Initial Talk and/or Poster Acceptances with Other COSIs to allow non-selected submissions to be offered for presentation by alternate COSIs.

Thursday, May 14, 2020

Talk and/or Poster Acceptance Notifications sent by COSI/Track ACs

Monday, May 25, 2020

CAMDA Extended Abstracts Deadline

Thursday, May 14, 2020

Late Poster Submissions Deadline

Thursday, May 28, 2020

Late Poster Acceptance Notifications sent by COSI/Track ACs

Thursday, June 4, 2020

CAMDA Acceptance Notification

Monday, June 15, 2020

Poster Presentation Numbers announced (ISMB) Poster schedule available online.

Thursday, July 16, 2020 (no later than 3:00 pm)

COSIs send top poster prize winner name, affiliation and poster title should to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to be included in Conference Closing Slides

Talk Times - TBD

General FAQ

Q: Can I submit more than one abstract?
A: Yes, but although having the same person deliver more than one talk is permitted, it is not encouraged. Also, although a poster presenter may present two posters (one in Poster Session A and one in Poster Session B), we encourage labs to involve multiple presenters.

Q: Can previously accepted work be considered for a poster?
A: Yes, we do ask that you note the year the work was published and provide the Digital Object Identifier (DOI) during the submission process.

Q: What is the size for a poster?
A: Details are posted at: https://www.iscb.org/ismbeccb2019-submit/abstracts#postersize


Award Winners

Ian Lawson Van Toch Memorial Award for Outstanding Student Paper
RCSB PDB Poster Prize
Special Session Systems Immunology: Janssen Awards
3DSIG COSI – Best Talk Awards
Bio-Ontologies COSI – Best Talk Award
Bio-Ontologies COSI – Best Poster Award
BioVis COSI – Best Poster Award
CAMDA COSI – Best Talk Awards
CAMDA COSI – Best Poster Award
CompMS COSI – Best Talk Awards
CompMS COSI – Best Poster Award
EvolCompGen COSI - Best Talk Award
EvolCompGen COSI - Best Poster Award
EvolCompGen COSI – Poster Special Mentions
General Computational Biology – Best Poster Award
HitSeq COSI - Best Talk Award
iRNA COSI – Best Poster Award
NetBio COSI – Best Talk Award
NetBio COSI – Best Poster Award
SysMod COSI - Best Poster Awards
TransMed COSI Best Oral Presentation Awards
TransMed COSI Best Poster Awards:

Download Closing Slides

 

Yannik Schälte, Helmholtz Zentrum München, Germany
Efficient Exact Inference for Dynamical Systems with Noisy Measurements using Sequential Approximate Bayesian Computation

 

With Support From:
Aya Narunsky, Yale University, United States
How proteins evolved to recognize an ancient nucleotide?



Special Session Systems Immunology: Janssen Awards

First Prize:
Benjamin Meckiff, La Jolla Institute for Immunology, United States
Single-cell transcriptomic analysis of SARS-CoV-2 reactive CD4+ T cells

Second Prize:
Nathan Lawlor, The Jackson Laboratory, United States
Dissecting the heterogeneity of protein and transcriptional responses in human blood derived immune cells after T- and monocyte-specific activation



3DSIG COSI – Best Talk Awards

First Prize
Sd Lam, Universiti Kebangsaan, Malaysia
SARS-CoV-2 spike protein predicted to bind strongly to host receptor protein orthologues from mammals, but not fish, birds or reptiles

Second Prize
Katrin Schöning-Stierand, Universität Hamburg - Center for Bioinformatics (ZBH), Germany



Bio-Ontologies COSI – Best Talk Award

Runar Reve, King Abdullah University Of Science and Technology, Saudi Arabia
Applying GWAS on UK Biobank by using enhanced phenotype information based on Ontology-Wide Association Study



Bio-Ontologies COSI – Best Poster Award

Toshiyuki T. Yokoyama, The University of Tokyo, Japan
Simon Heumos, Quantitative Biology Center (QBiC) Tübingen, University of Tübingen, Germany
Semantic Variation Graphs: Ontologies for Pangenome Graphs



BioVis COSI – Best Poster Award

Kari Lavikka, University of Helsinki, Finland
Grammar-Based Interactive Genome Visualization



CAMDA COSI – Best Talk Awards

First Prize:
Cory Gardner, Saint Louis University, United States
Metagenomic Data Analysis with Probability-Based Reduced Dataset Representation

Second Prize:
Carlos Loucera, Clinical Bioinformatics Area (FPS), Spain
Towards a metagenomics interpretable model for understanding the transition from adenoma to colorectal cancer

Third Prize:
Maria Peña-Chilet, CIBERER, Spain
Mechanistic models of CMap drug perturbation functional profiles



CompMS COSI – Best Talk Awards

Proteomics
Matthew The, KTH Stockholm, Sweden
Focus on the spectra that matter by clustering of quantification data in shotgun proteomics

Metabolomics
Kai Dührkop, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena, Germany
Classes for the masses: Systematic classification of unknowns using fragmentation spectra



CompMS COSI – Best Poster Awards

Proteomics
Steven Eschrich, H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute, United States
Artificial Intelligence-Based TMT Experiment Planning Tool

Metabolomics
Joe Wandy, University of Glasgow, United Kingdom
Advancing fragmentation strategies development in LC-MS metabolomics



EvolCompGen COSI - Best Talk Award

Avital Sharir-Ivry, McGill University, Israel
On quantifying evolutionary importance of protein sites: A tale of two measures



EvolCompGen COSI - Best Poster Award

Linda K. Sundermann, University of Toronto, Canada
Reconstructing Tumor Evolutionary Histories and Clone Trees in Polynomial-time with SubMARine



EvolCompGen COSI – Poster Special Mentions

Xuecong Fu, Carnegie Mellon University, United States
Joint clustering of single cell sequencing and fluorescent in situ hybridization data to infer tumor copy number phylogenies

Karn Jongnarangsin, Michigan State University, United States
A Pangenome and Comparative Pathogenomics Workflow for Bacterial Pathogens

Gurmeet Kaur, NCBI, NIH, United States
Highly-regulated and diverse NTP-based biological conflict systems with implications for emergence of multicellularity

Samuel Chen, Michigan State University, United States
A Computational Molecular Evolutionary Approach to Characterize Bacterial Proteins



General Computational Biology – Best Poster Award

Robin Aguilar, University of Washington Department of Genome Sciences, United States
Tigerfish: A Software Tool to Design Genome-Scale Oligonucleotide Hybridization Probes to Visualize Satellite DNA



HitSeq COSI - Best Talk Award

Ying Chen, Genome Institute of Singapore, Singapore
Reference-guided transcript discovery and quantification for long read RNA-Seq data



NetBio COSI – Best Talk Award

Torsten Gross, IRI Life Sciences, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany Identifiability and experimental design in perturbation studies



NetBio COSI – Best poster Award

Ina Maria Deutschmann, Institute of Marine Sciences (ICM-CSIC), Spain
Dynamic Microbial Association Networks in the Ocean



SysMod COSI - Best Poster Awards

First Prize:
Chaitra Sarathy, Maastricht University, Netherlands
Identifying characteristic features of metabolic states using Genome-Scale Metabolic Models


Second Prize:
Narasimhan Balakrishnan, Northwestern University, United States Model reduction and optimal control for multicellular biological oscillator systems

Third Prize:
Aurelien Pelissier, IBM Research, Switzerland Computational model reveals a stochastic mechanism behind germinal center clonal bursts



TransMed COSI Best Oral Presentation Awards

First Prize (tie):
Ahmed Metwally, Stanford University, United States
Longitudinal multi-omics profiling reveals two biological seasonal patterns in California


First Prize (tie):
Jannis Born, ETH Zurich, Switzerland POCOVID-Net: Automatic Detection of COVID-19 From a New Lung Ultrasound Imaging Dataset (POCUS)

Third Prize:
Yu-Chiao Chiu, University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, United States A deep transfer learning model for extending in vitro CRISPR-Cas9 viability screens to tumors



TransMed COSI Best Poster Awards

First Prize:
Jonas Béal, Institut Curie, Paris, France
Emulating clinical trials for precision medicine with causal inference: application to PDX data


Second Prize:
Jasleen Kaur Grewal, Canada's Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada Single-sample pathway analysis using Pathway Impact Evaluation (PIE) of machine-learning based cancer classifiers

Third Prize:
Murih Pusparum, Hasselt University & Flemish Institute for Technological Research (VITO), From Population to Subject-Specific Reference Intervals



 

 

ISMB 2020 Virtual Career Fair

Within the ISMB 2020 virtual conference environment, ISCB is pleased to offer the 2020 Career Fair. Catapulting from the success over the past two years, the ISMB 2020 virtual career fair will connect talent with talent seekers (recruiters). Through our virtual platform, those who are recruiting for open positions will have the opportunity to present information about their organization. After the close of the presentation session, those who are recruiting will continue to be part of the virtual conference Career Center.

Within the Career Center, a job seeker (complimentary access with conference registration and upload of CV to the ISCB Career Center) will be able to learn more about each organization as well as set up one-on-one appointments with the recruiters.

ISMB Virtual Career Fair:

Exclusive networking event held online for recruiters to find that perfect candidate.

ISCB Member145 USD
Nonmember455 USD
  • 5-minute presentation during the virtual career fair*
  • Organization description posted within the virtual Career Center
  • One-on-One appointment scheduler for the duration of the virtual conference
  • ISMB 2020 jobs board postings (up to five postings)
  • Jobs migrated to ISCB Career Center for 60 days after the conference

*Conference registration required for talent seeker (recruiter) presenting during the virtual fair

Upgrade to a Recruiter Package!

ISMB Career Corner Recruiter's Package:
ISCB Member (Not-for-profit, Academic)1,000 USD
ISCB Member (For Profit)1,250 USD
ISCB Member (For Profit)1,450 USD
  • Organization listing with description, graphic, and pre-recorded video as part of the virtual exhibit hall
  • One (1) complimentary registration to ISMB 2020
  • Unlimited job or program postings on the online ISMB jobs board, and 60 days on the ISCB Career Center
  • 5-minute presentation during the virtual career fair
  • One-on-One appointment scheduler for the duration of the virtual conference

Birds of a Feather (BoF) - ISMB 2020

ISMB 2020 Online Workshop and Tutorial Program

ISMB 2020 will hold a series of online workshops and tutorials prior to the start of the ISMB 2020 virtual conference scientific program.

Tutorial Registration is Closed.

Tutorial 1: Mutational signature analysis: pipelines, machine learning, and benchmarking on synthetic data

Saturday, July 11, 9:00 am - 1:00 pm (Eastern Daylight Time)
Sunday, July 12, 9:00 am - 1:00 pm (Eastern Daylight Time)


Presenters

Steven G. Rozen, Duke NUS Centre for Computational Biology Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore.
Arnoud Boot, PhD Postdoctoral Fellow Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore
Ferran Muiños, Institute for Research in Biomedicine Barcelona, The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology, Barcelona, Spain

Overview

Mutational signature analysis focuses on patterns of mutations across the genome to infer their causes, and is now an essential component of cancer-genomics studies. Over the last decade, mutational signatures have revealed endogenous mutational processes that are widespread in many cancer types but that were not previously known. Signatures also showed that exposure to naturally occurring mutagens that cause liver cancer is much more widespread than suspected. Mutational signature analysis can also provide insight into the causes of specific oncogenic mutations and can reveal gaps in our understanding of the mechanisms of DNA damage and repair. Mutational signatures can either be delineated in experimental systems (e.g. cell culture or rodents) or can be discovered by machine learning across sets of hundreds to 10s of thousands of tumors. More than 100 mutational signatures have been described, many of which have unknown causes. In line with the importance of mutational signature analysis, there are now ~20 software packages that use machine learning to discover mutational signatures and assess their activity in tumors. Unfortunately, however, the cancer genomics literature contains numerous erroneous mutational signature results stemming from uncritical application of these packages.

We will cover the basic concepts of mutational signature analysis and show how this analysis is important for understanding cancer development, for detecting mutational exposures that cause cancer, and for understanding DNA damage as processed by normal and defective DNA repair. We will introduce the computational analysis needed to delineate mutational signatures in experimental systems (e.g. cultured cells or rodents), including the computational subtraction of the signatures of background mutagenesis and of experimental artifacts. We will cover in detail machine learning approaches to discovering mutational signatures in large sets of tumors and the strengths and weaknesses of these approaches. We will also discuss in depth the importance of benchmarking the machine-learning approaches on synthetic data. Finally, the tutorial will show examples of the importance of interpreting machine-learning results in the light of all available evidence to obtain biologically relevant results.

This tutorial will equip participants with the ability to run machine-learning software to discover mutational signatures and to assess their activity in tumors and with strategies to evaluate the soundness and biological relevance of the results.

Learning Objectives

(1) Understand basic concepts of mutational signature analysis. Understand the importance of mutational signature analysis for research into cancer development, for detecting mutational exposures that cause cancer, and for studying how endogenous and exogenous DNA damage as processed by normal and defective DNA repair leads to particular mutational signatures.

(2) Understand computational analysis for delineating mutational signatures in experimental systems, such as cultured cells or rodents, including subtracting signatures of background mutagenesis and of experimental artifacts.

(3) Understand machine learning approaches to discovering mutational signatures in large sets of mutational spectra plus the opportunities and challenges in using these approaches. Understand available software implementing these approaches. Understanding strategies for interpreting the results in the light of all available evidence to resolve unavoidable ambiguities and assess biological relevance.

(4) Understanding how testing machine learning methods on synthetic data as revealed the strengths, weaknesses, of different approaches

(5) Understand how processes of DNA damage, repair, and replication interact with genomic landscape.

Audience

Computing experience: there may be exercises using the command line in R; we will also share code snippets written in Python. Currently we hope that most computation can be handled using web servers. Participants will need a basic understanding of genome organization, mutations, and modern high throughput Illumina-type sequencing (BAM files, variant call files, etc.)

A list of small data sets and possibly software to be pre-downloaded onto students' computers will be available one week before the tutorial.

Maximum Participants: 60

Schedule Overview - Saturday July 11 - 9:00 - 1:00 pm Eastern Daylight Time
9:00 - 9:05 am Overview of mutational signatures
9:05 - 9:25 am Overview of mutational signatures
9:25 - 10:30 am Lecture 1, Arnoud Boot, Mutational signatures and experimental elucidation of mutational signatures

What are mutational spectra and what are they good for
"Simple" mutational spectra based on single nucleotide substitutions in trinucleotide context
Applications of mutational signatures
- in cancer epidemiology
- to study DNA damage and repair
- to study oncogenesis (origins of tumors)
- to study mutational processes in non-cancer tissue
Mutational signatures of small indels and doublet base substitutions and of single-base substitutions in extended contexts
Experimentally delineated mutational signatures and spectra; experimental procedures; possible pitfalls, e.g. contamination, difference in DNA repair, conceptual issues. If a compound just turns up the background signature, is that a signature? Can you estimate mutagenicity from cell line or mouse experiments; why that is difficult
Computational analysis of experimentally delineated signatures; process VCFs filtering, possible issues; Separating signatures of background mutagenesis and of experimental artifacts from the "target" signature

10:30 (?) (Hands on) Computational analysis of experimentally delineated mutational signatures; subtracting the signatures of background mutagenesis and of experimental artifacts
Noon 1:00 Lecture 2 Steve Rozen Machine learning for discovering mutational signatures
• The twin problems of signature discovery and determining how much of each signature is present in a tumor (“signature attribution”)
• Signature attribution as a separate problem from signature discovery (using COSMIC and/or experimental signatures)
• Non-negative matrix factorization based approaches
• Challenges in signature discovery and attribution: number of signatures, biological relevance, sparsity versus over-fitting
- Discovery and attribution are not purely algorithmic processes -- they require human judgement
1:00 pm End for Saturday
Schedule Overview - Sunday July 12 - 9:00 - 1:00 pm Eastern Daylight Time
9:00 - 9:30 am Lecture 2 (continued) Steve Rozen Machine learning for discovering mutational signatures

• Hierarchical Dirichlet process approaches
- Assessment with synthetic data
- -Strategies for evaluating results from signature discovery and signature attribution

9:30 - 10:30 am Exercises, machine learning / data mining for discovery, assessment with synthetic data
10:30 - 11:00 am Lecture 3 - Ferran Muiños - Signatures and Genomic Landscapes: Common Themes and Tactics in Genomic Landscape Analyses

Mutational profiles: from relative frequencies to conditional probabilities. A case for normalization: exome vs whole-genome data. Context of inference vs context of application.
Site-specific mutation rates. Assessing mutation rate heterogeneity. Expected number of mutations in genomic segments. The case of exon vs intron mutation rate.
Assessing mutation rate anomalies. The case of clustered mutations.
Shuffling mutations in genome segments according to prescribed mutational profiles.
Signature attribution revisited: using signature attributions to estimate mutational risks.
Synthetic mutational profiles revisited: injection of mutational signatures.
Assessing similarity: mutational profiles and exposure profiles. Cosine similarity. Relative entropy. Statistical similarity. Clustering samples by exposure profiles.
Odds and ends. Summary and take-home messages.
Description of code snippets and utilities supplied in the repository.

11:00 - 11:15 pm Break
11:15 - 1:00 pm Wrap up discussion, future prospects and challenges, pointers to resources
1:00 pm End of the course

Tutorial 2: Finding and analyzing data in the cloud with Gen3, Dockstore, Terra, and Galaxy

Thursday, July 9, 9:00 am - 1:00 pm (Eastern Daylight Time)

Agenda with Tutorial Materials
Presenters

Geraldine Van der Auwera, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, United States
Robert Majovski, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, United States

Overview

The era of big data for biomedical research is here. Massive data sets and cloud-based platforms will enable breakthrough discoveries while overcoming challenges of cost, accessibility, and security. A key strength of this new research landscape is interoperable, community-driven components that enable robust analyses for a variety of research needs.

Audience

Researchers and bioinformaticians interested in ways to maximize data and analysis resources in the cloud. The ideal tutorial participant will have coding experience and basic familiarity with genomics terminology and standard high-throughput sequencing data formats.

Goals

Guide you through the capabilities and components of the NHGRI Genomic Data Science Analysis, Visualization and Informatics Lab-space (AnVIL) resource.  Gain working knowledge of how the components work together to perform an end-to-end genetic analysis.

Slack: Please join us in the #ismb-2020 channel at https://anvilproject.org/contact

Virtual Event Agenda, all times ET
  •   9:00        AnVIL: A new vision for Analysis in the Cloud………..……..        Presenter Mike Schatz [PDF]
  •   9:15        Data that’s better, bigger, faster in the AnVIL        ………..……...        Presenter Liz Kiernan [PDF]
  •   9:25        Intro to Terra Overview ………..…….………..…….…………        Presenter Tiffany Miller  [PDF]
  •   9:40        Get set up in Terra (hands-on)………..…….………..……….        Presenter Allie Hajian [PDF]
  •   9:55        Break
  • 10:10        Data and documentation in a Workspace………..…….……        Presenter Tiffany Miller [PDF]
  • 10:30        Find and import workflows in Dockstore (hands-on)………. Presenter Tiffany Miller [PDF]
  • 10:45        Set up and run your workflow (hands-on)………..…….…….Presenter Tiffany Miller [PDF]
  • 11:00        Break
  • 11:20        Workflows outputs and troubleshooting………..…….………        Presenter Jason Cerrato [PDF]
  • 11:30        Interactive analysis (hands-on) plus Hail intro...…………….        Presenter Allie Hajian [PDF]
  • 11:50        Break
  • 12:05        Bioconductor for RNA-seq analysis (hands-on)………..……Presenter Liz Kiernan [PDF]
  • 12:50        Wrap-up / Q&A………..………………………………………...Presenter Mike Schatz [PDF]

Tutorial 3: Full-Length RNA-Seq Analysis using PacBio long reads: from reads to functional interpretation

Sunday, July 12, 9:00 am - 1:00 pm (Eastern Daylight Time)

Presenters

Ana Conesa, University of Florida, United States
Elizabeth Tseng, Pacific Biosciences, United States
Angeles Arzalluz, Polytechnical University Valencia, Spain
Francisco Pardo, Polytechnical University Valenciam, Spain
Carmen Guarco, Pacific Biosciences, United States

Overview

The PacBio Single-Molecule Real-Time sequencing technology produces highly accurate long reads that is suitable for full-length RNA sequencing. The Iso-Seq method generates full-length transcript sequences of 10 kb or longer that does not require transcript assembly or error correction. The high accuracy (>99%) of Iso-Seq transcripts allows for unambiguous characterization of alternative splicing events, direct ORF prediction without a reference genome, and identification of single cell barcodes.

The unique features of Iso-Seq data requires a special set of bioinformatics tools that typical short read RNA-seq tools fail to provide. The PacBio SMRT Analysis software processes raw sequencing data into full-length transcript sequences, which can then be analyzed with community tools that have been developed specifically for long read data: SQANTI compares Iso-Seq transcripts against known annotations (ex: GENCODE) to classify novel vs known genes and transcript, and remove artifacts; IsoAnnot functionally annotates Iso-Seq transcripts; tappAS compares multiple Iso-Seq samples to identify differential features. Existing RNA-Seq short read data are often paired with Iso-Seq data to strengthen the analysis.

Further, the Iso-Seq method can also be applied to single cell analysis. Matching single cell libraries of both long and short read data can be generated and combined to using the deeper coverage of short reads to identify cell types, while using matching cell barcodes to link fulllength isoforms generated by the long-read data back to individual cell types.

In this tutorial, we provide an overview of the Iso-Seq tools for both bulk and single cell RNAseq analysis and guide the audience through hands on analyses.

Audience

Beginner or intermediate. This tutorial will be of broad interest to researchers from academia or industry who want to learn to understand the unique features and tool sets of long read RNA sequencing (Iso-Seq) data using PacBio’s SMRT Technology.

Attendees are expected to have basic Unix command line skills and some familiarity with R/Rstudio. Programming knowledge is not required though most of the tools are written in Python.

Maximum Audience: 30

Requirements

Attendees are expected to bring their own laptops and have installed R/RStudio and the tappAS software. We will be using a shared instance in AWS for the first part of the analysis (Iso-Seq and SQANTI), then running tappAS on the local laptops.

Schedule Overview
9:00 - 9:30 am Introduction
  • Introduction to PacBio SMRT Technology and the Iso-Seq method (full-length RNA-Seq)
  • Review the official PacBio software (SMRT Analysis/BioConda)
  • Review the downstream community Iso-Seq tools: SQANTI, IsoAnnot, TAPPAS
9:30 - 10:15 am Demo & Hands-On Session: Iso-Seq using BioConda
  • Using a small human whole transcriptome Iso-Seq dataset, run through the Iso-Seq
  • pipeline using BioConda
  • Learn to visualize transcript GFF files in IGV and UCSC genome browser
10:15 - 11:00 am Demo & Hands-On Session: Functional analysis of Iso-Seq data
  • Use SQANTI to annotate novel/known genes/transcripts and remove artifacts
  • Use IsoAnnot to functionally annotate transcripts
  • Use tappAS to identify differentially expressed features across samples
11:00 - 11:15 am Break
11:15 - 11:45 am Single Cell Iso-Seq
  • Overview of applying long read sequencing for single cell transcript analysis
12:15 - 12:45 pm Hands-On Session: Single Cell Iso-Seq + RNA-Seq
  • Using a small single cell Iso-Seq and RNA-seq dataset, run through the Iso-Seq single cell pipeline
  • Learn to combine long & short read single cell data using Rstudio
12:50 - 1:00 pm Wrap Up

Tutorial 4: A practical introduction to biomedical text mining in the era of deep learning

Sunday, July 12, 9:00 am - 1:00 pm (Eastern Daylight Time)
Tutorial 4 Materials
Presenters

Qingyu Chen, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health
Robert Leaman, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health
Cecilia Arighi, Delaware Biotechnology Institute, University of Delaware
Zhiyong Lu, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health

Overview

The volume of biomedical literature is growing at an exponential rate. PubMed, a biomedical literature search engine managed by the National Library of Medicine, has ~2 new articles indexed per minute. Such rapid growth challenges manual information extraction, curation and annotation. Biomedical text mining aims to apply natural language processing techniques to biomedical literature and automatically assist biocurators, biologists and health professionals to overcome the burden. Biomedical text mining has matured significantly in recent years. More specifically, deep learning – end-to-end neural networks inspired by biological systems – has achieved state-of-the-art performance in a range of biomedical text mining applications. In the bioinformatics community, the use of text mining via deep learning to support other research in the biological and medical sciences has been increasing. Not restricted to standalone tools, deep learning models have also been fully deployed to public web servers, further improving the quality of biomedical text mining tools and lowering the barriers for non-specialists.

This tutorial aims to familiarize the audience with an introduction to text mining the biomedical literature using deep learning methods and to provide hands-on training. The tutorial will address questions such as “What is biomedical text mining?”, “What is deep learning?”, “How can deep learning be applied to address biomedical text mining problems?”, and “What biomedical text mining tools are currently available?”. The tutorial will cover the basics of biomedical text mining and deep learning with concrete examples. The latest deep learning methods in biomedical text mining will also be explained and discussed. Also, the audience will have the opportunity to get the first hands-on experience to develop their deep learning models in biomedical literature analysis. Topics include:

  • Fundamentals of biomedical text mining and literature mining
  • Overview of deep learning in biomedical text mining
  • Word, sentence, concept embeddings for biomedical textual analysis
  • Public biomedical text mining tools for biomedical information retrieval and extraction
  • Case studies: biomedical literature analysis

This tutorial is an activity of the ISCB COSI on Text Mining.

Audience

We intend the tutorial to be for participants who are not text mining specialists but use or are interested in using it. This tutorial will provide a brief introduction, including describing existing tools and datasets. In addition, the session will provide an opportunity to describe their needs to text mining specialists.

Maximum Audience: 60

Requirements

None, if participants just wish to listen. Those who would like to also participate in the hands-on exercises are required to provide their own laptop and should have a basic knowledge of programming in Python.

Schedule Overview
9:00 - 9:25 am Introduction to biomedical text mining
  • Biomedical text processing pipeline
  • Biomedical text mining use cases
  • Q&A
9:25 - 9:30 am Introduction to biomedical text mining Short Break
9:30 - 9:55 am Introduction to deep learning
  • Basics of deep learning
  • An overview of different deep learning models (more detail in the later session)
  • Q & A
9:55 - 10:00 am Introduction to biomedical text mining Short Break
10:00 - 11:00 am Biomedical language models
  • Word embedding
  • Concept embedding
  • Sentence embedding
  • Contextual embedding (ELMO and BERT)
  • Q & A
11:00 - 11:15 am Long Break
11:15 - 12:00 pm S4. Demonstration: deep learning tools and datasets for biomedical text mining tasks
  • Named entity recognition
  • Relation extraction
  • Document classification
  • Sentence retrieval
  • Literature-based discovery
  • Q & A

Tutorial 5: BioC++ - solving daily bioinformatic tasks with C++ efficiently

Sunday, July 12, 9:00 am - 1:00 pm (Eastern Daylight Time)

Presenters

René Rahn, Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics, Algorithmic Bioinformatics, Germany
Svenja Mehringer, Free University Berlin, Algorithmic Bioinformatics, Germany
Marcel Ehrhardt, Free University Berlin, Algorithmic Bioinformatics, Germany

Overview

In this half-day tutorial we are going to teach how to use modern C++ and utilise modern C++ libraries to rapidly develop tools and scripts for operating on and manipulating large-scale sequencing data.

Motivation

The high variability and heterogeneity often observed within various genomic data is challenging for many standard tools, for example for read alignment and variant calling. Often, these tools are wrapped in complicated pre- and postprocessing data curation steps in order to obtain results with higher quality. However, these additional steps incur a high maintenance and performance burden to the established work process and often do not scale with larger data sets. Seldomly, C++ is considered as the language of choice for these small processes, although it is the main language used in high-performance computing. We are going to show that implementing modern C++ can be as easy as using other modern high-level languages.

Course outline:

This tutorial is organised as a half-day tutorial. At the beginning we are going to introduce fundamental concepts and principles of the C++ programming language. Further, we will teach how modern C++ features such as ranges and concepts can be used to rapidly develop high-quality C++ applications. This introduction to C++ follows a practical session were participants will read in typical files from sequencing experiments using the C++ library SeqAn and operate on the data with the taught principles to solve diverse problems, e.g. filtering out reads with low sequencing quality and others. In the last 30 minutes of the day we are going to summarise the learned concepts and compare the developed methods to current approaches.

Audience

This tutorial is mostly suited for computational biologist and bioinformaticians with research focus on sequence analysis (e.g., genomics, metagenomics, proteomics, read alignment, variant detection, etc.). A fundamental knowledge about sequencing experiments and the involved data is required. We expect that attendees have an intermediate knowledge in programming with any high-level programming language, e.g. Python, Java or C++. Some basic C++-knowledge is helpful but not mandatory to successfully complete the course.

This tutorial is targeting beginners and intermediate C++ developers that want to learn more about modern C++ features like ranges and concepts.

Requirements:

Attendees should bring their own laptop.
Software for the tutorial can be installed beforehand, but we will also dedicate some extra time for installing required software during the tutorial.

  • Git
  • g++ >= 7
  • SeqAn 3 - (https://github.com/seqan/seqan3)
  • CMake >= 3.12

or, VirtualBox if the attendee wishes to use the provided virtual image running Ubuntu.

Maximum Attendees: 30

Schedule Overview
9:00 - 10:30 am Introduction to modern C++ [talk: 30 min]
Initial app and parsing sequencing data [hands-on: 60 min]
10:30 - 11:00 am Break
11:00 - 12:30 pm Filtering and data manipulation (hands-on)
12:30 - 1:00 pm Wrap-up [talk: 30 min]

Tutorial 6: Translational use of multifaceted RNA-Seq bioinformatics analysis in genetic disease investigation

Sunday, July 12, 9:00 am - 1:00 pm (Eastern Daylight Time)

Presenters

Gavin R. Oliver, Center for Individualized Medicine, Mayo Clinic, United States
Garrett Jenkinson, Mayo Clinic, United States
Eric W. Klee, PhD, Center for Individualized Medicine, Mayo Clinic, United States

Overview

RNA-Seq is increasingly being recognized as a testing modality with significant untapped potential in the field of genetic disease studies. These data present a unique opportunity for diverse multifaceted analysis. Data profiling methods including expression outlier analysis, aberrant splicing detection, fusion transcript identification and allele-specific expression have been demonstrated to achieve genetic diagnosis of diseases escaping resolution through traditional clinical and research-based DNA-testing. Recent published works have highlighted the ability to increase diagnostic rates by as much as 35% utilizing RNA-Seq analysis, but analytical workflows are diverse and non-trivial to implement or interpret. This tutorial focuses on the utilization of RNA-based analysis for the improved diagnosis of rare genetic disease. An introduction will be given to the current state of genetic disease diagnostics and the benefits revealed to date by RNA-Seq. RNA-based testing paradigms will be introduced individually and discussed in terms of translational utility with a focus on data analysis methodologies and considerations. Each computational analysis solution will be overviewed with hands-on sessions highlighting the analytical capabilities of a specific informatics solution for each testing paradigm. Means of prioritizing results based on biological and phenotypic relevance will be addressed and cutting-edge computational solutions demonstrated. Finally consideration will be given to the principles and considerations underlying final data integration, review and analysis to maximize the likelihood of patient diagnosis amidst a growing data deluge.

Audience

Researchers or scientists with computational or genomics training and an interest in analytical techniques aimed at the improved diagnosis or rare genetic disease. Individuals with prior and current experience in the field of rare genetic disease will benefit from the ability to utilize the knowledge gained immediately in their own work. Experience programming in R would be useful but practical sessions will be conducted within a Jupyter environment, enabling code to be followed and executed without programming expertise. Attendees wishing to perform the practical components of the hands-on sessions are required to provide their own laptop.

Maximum Audience: 40

Schedule Overview
9:00 - 9:30 am Introduction
  • An introduction to rare genetic disease
  • A common problem - when rare isn’t rare
  • Rare genetic disease diagnosis in the era of next-generation sequencing
  • The promise of RNA-Seq in improving rare genetic disease diagnosis
9:30 - 10:00 am Confounding variable correction and outlier expression analysis
  • Introduction to confounding variables in RNA data
  • Concepts of differential expression vs outlier detection
  • Software solutions overview and challenges
  • Machine learning-based correction of confounding variables
  • Outlier gene expression detection and utility in rare genetic disease studies
10:00 - 10:35 am Hands-On Practicum: OUTRIDER expression analyses
  • Preprocessing and filtering counts
  • Autoencoder-based confounder corrections and library size correction
  • Model building and outlier detection
10:35 - 11:05 am Fusion transcript detection in rare genetic disease
  • Fusion transcripts: an oncogenic phenomenon?
  • Technical challenges of detecting fusion transcripts in rare genetic disease
  • Software solutions overview and challenges
  • Software customizations to facilitate rare genetic disease diagnosis
  • Filtering strategies and result prioritization
11:05 - 11:20 am Break
11:20 - 11:55 am Hands-On Practicum: Fusion filtering and prioritization
  • Normal tissue based filtering strategies and challenges
  • Phenotypic prioritization using genelists and PCAN
11:55 - 12:25 pm Identification of aberrant splicing events in rare genetic disease patients
  • Introduction to splicing aberrations in rare genetic disease
  • Software solutions overview and challenges
  • Inverting the problem: intron vs exon usage
  • Intron cluster-based normalization
  • Statistical considerations and refinements for rare genetic disease diagnosis
12:25 - 1:00 pm Hands-On Practicum: Leafcutter for detecting splicing outliers
  • Junction counting and clustering
  • Dirichlet-Multinomial modeling and outlier detection

Tutorial 7: Automation of Network Analysis in the Cytoscape Ecosystem

Sunday, July 12, 9:00 am - 1:00 pm (Eastern Daylight Time)

Tutorial 7 Materials
Presenters

Dexter Pratt, UC San Diego School of Medicine, United States
Alexander Pico, Gladstone Institutes, United States
John “Scooter” Morris, UCSF, United States

Overview

Cytoscape, one of the most popular tools for network analysis and visualization, is evolving into an ecosystem of web applications and cloud services integrated with the original desktop application. In this workshop, we will demonstrate new workflows involving core components of the ecosystem and the methods by which they can be automated for integration with your scripts, web applications, Cytoscape desktop apps. The workflows will use ecosystem components including the Cytoscape desktop, the NDEx public database, the new Cytoscape Integrated Query application (IQuery), and libraries in R, Python, and Javascript. We will begin with an overview of the ecosystem, and then discuss how its components can be applied to two common tasks: the analysis of molecular interaction data and the interpretation of gene sets. The bulk of the workshop will be a hands-on demonstration of how to use standard components in each programming environment in a workflow involving protein interaction data.

Audience

This tutorial is intended for an audience that has prior experience with:

  • R or Python
  • Basic Javascript
  • The Cytoscape desktop application
  • Bioinformatics analysis using R or Python

Participants are required to bring a laptop with a Cytoscape 3.8, either R and RStudio or Python 3.5+ and Jupyter notebooks, and an environment for web / Javascript development installed. The Chrome or Edge browsers are preferred. Detailed instructions will be provided in the weeks prior to the tutorial.

Maximum Audience: 60

9:00 - 9:40 am Introduction
  • Quick introductions: presenters & audience.
  • A Cytoscape ecosystem overview.
  • Review of the four parallel methods for workflows in this tutorial. Unless otherwise stated, each segment will cover the same operations using:
    • Manual operations in Cytoscape, NDEx, IQuery.
    • Cytoscape Automation.
    • Direct access to NDEx and IQuery from Python or R.
    • Direct access to NDEx and IQuery from Javascript.
9:40 - 10:20 am Setting up the Workspace
  • Clone the tutorial GitHub repository.
  • Launch Cytoscape.
  • Set up an NDEx account and configure Cytoscape to use it.
  • Open Jupyter Notebooks and run the “hello-ecosystem” notebook.
  • Open RStudio and run the “hello-ecosystem” script.
  • Open the “hello-ecosystem” web app.
9:20 - 11:00 am Network I/O to NDEx and Basic Visualization
  • Download a public network from NDEx.
  • Apply a simple style to the network.
  • Apply a layout to the network.
  • Save the network to NDEx.
11:00 - 11:15 am Break
11:15 - 12:00 pm Data to Networks
  • Good practices for data formatting, CX name and identifier conventions.
  • Load protein interaction data as a network.
  • Annotate a network with gene expression data.
12:00 - 1:00 pm Additional Topics and Q&A
  • Cluster a network in Cytoscape and save one cluster to NDEx.
  • Launch IQuery to analyze the gene set from the cluster.
  • Save an analysis result network to NDEx.
  • From the example web app, open an analysis result network in Cytoscape.

Registration Fees

ISCB MEMBER FEES - Virtual Tutorials
Tutorial 1 will be held on two mornings
Tutorials 2 - 7 will be held on one morning
All times Eastern Daylight Time

High Income Countries Middle-Low Income Countries Low Income Countries
Student (Tutorial 1) $100.00 $50.00 $20.00
Post Doc (Tutorial1) $100.00 $50.00 $20.00
Professional: Academic; Non-profit; Government; or Corporate (Tutorial 1) $100.00 $50.00 $20.00
Student (Tutorials 2 - 7) $50.00 $25.00 $10.00
Post Doc (Tutorials 2 - 7) $50.00 $25.00 $10.00
Professional: Academic; Non-profit; Government; or Corporate (Tutorials 2 - 7) $50.00 $25.00 $10.00
NON-MEMBER FEES - Virtual Tutorials
(fee includes 1 year ISCB membership)

Tutorial 1 will be held on two mornings
Tutorials 2 - 7 will be held on one morning
All times Eastern Daylight Time
High Income Countries Middle-Low Income Countries Low Income Countries
Student (Tutorial 1) $165.00 $85.00 $35.00
Post Doc (Tutorial1) $195.00 $85.00 $35.00
Professional: Academic; Non-profit; Government; or Corporate (Tutorial 1) $240.00 $105.00 $55.00
Student (Tutorials 2 - 7) $110.00 $55.00 $25.00
Post Doc (Tutorials 2 - 7) $140.00 $55.00 $25.00
Professional: Academic; Non-profit; Government; or Corporate (Tutorials 2 - 7) $185.00 $75.00 $40.00

Exclusively for members

  • Member Discount

    ISCB Members enjoy discounts on conference registration (up to $150), journal subscriptions, book (25% off), and job center postings (free).

  • Why Belong

    Connecting, Collaborating, Training, the Lifeblood of Science. ISCB, the professional society for computational biology!

     

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