ISMB/ECCB 2013 - Last Call for Posters!

Dear Colleague,

ISMB/ECCB 2013 will bring together scientists from a wide range of disciplines, including molecular biology, biology, medicine, computer science, mathematics and statistics. We are soliciting high-quality research posters in any aspect of computational biology.

The poster submission deadline is this Friday, March 22!

< learn about poster submission here >

Don't miss this chance to share your research in Berlin!

Posters submitted may cover any area of computational biology. We also encourage submission of purely experimental work and experimental posters should be submitted to the category most accurately reflecting the area of this work and will be displayed accordingly. Posters must include original work that is unpublished or published after August 1, 2012.

Submitted posters will be reviewed by the poster selection committee and notification of acceptance will be provided to the corresponding author no later than Monday, April 12, 2013.

We look forward to seeing you in Berlin.

Sincerely,

Burkhard Rost, Anna Tramontano, Martin Vingron, Conference Co-chairs, ISMB/ECCB 2013

LAST CALL FOR ANNUAL AWARDS NOMINATIONS!

2013 Overton Prize and 2013 Accomplishment by a Senior Scientist Award

www.iscb.org/iscb-awards

Nomination deadline: November 30, 2012

ISCB's annual awards are the most prestigious international awards designated exclusively to researchers in the field of computational biology/bioinformatics, and you are invited to submit nominations for the 2013 Overton Prize and the 2013 Accomplishment by a Senior Scientist Award.

The Overton Prize is awarded to an early career scientist, generally within ten years post-degree, and the Accomplishment by a Senior Scientist Award is in recognition of highly significant, long-term career achievement. The winners of both awards will deliver keynote talks at ISCB's annual meeting, ISMB/ECCB 2013, in Berlin, Germany.

Nominations from all regions of the world are encouraged, and the selection of award winners will be made by an international panel of current and past members of the ISCB Board of Directors. The nomination form, list of past winners with links to their bios, and a link to the full policies and procedures of these ISCB awards, are all accessed at the above URL.

Please consider nominating your highly accomplished peers and senior researchers who have helped to advance our field in significant and meaningful ways, and then proceed to the nomination form to ensure they are considered for these prestigious awards.

Thank you,

Alfonso Valencia

Chair, ISCB Awards Committee

Please Sign on to Open Letter to Protect ERC Funding

Dear colleagues,

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

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

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

www.no-cuts-on-research.eu

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

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

Best regards,

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

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

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

Dear ISCB and ASBCB Members and Colleagues,

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

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

Paper submissions: due by November 16th

Poster abstracts: due by December 12th

Travel Fellowship applications: due by December 12th

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

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

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

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

Yours sincerely,

Alia Benkahla
ISCB Africa ASBCB Conference Chair

Dan Masiga
ISCB Africa ASBCB Conference Program Committee Chair