Dear Rocky '06 Participant,

Welcome to the forth annual Rocky Mountain Bioinformatics Meeting, a conference of the International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB). The organizers hope that you enjoy the program, and find the meeting a productive opportunity to meet researchers, students and industrial users of bioinformatics technology. We think we have the best program yet, offering a remarkable cross-section of bioinformatics research.

The Rocky series began four years ago as a regional meeting, and has grown into an international program with a spotlight on regional development in the computational biosciences. Presenters at this year’s meeting come from the Rocky Mountain regional states/provinces of Alberta, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming, as well as from over 10 other states/provinces and at least six countries. These scientists represent a broad spectrum of universities, industrial enterprises, government laboratories, and medical libraries. Among our keynote speakers Prof. Ptitsyn just moved to the Rocky Mountain area to take a new faculty position, Prof. Wishart is a longstanding member of our regional community, and Dr. Myers got his Ph.D. in the area. The meeting is a chance to get to know your colleagues near and far, seek collaborative opportunities, and find synergies that can drive our field forward.

For 2006 we’ve expanded the science by extending the meeting to three full days, increased the duration of the short talks to 10 minutes, and enlarged the poster session, allowing everyone who wants to present to do so. We’ve retained the education workshop to discuss issues central to training the next generation of bioinformaticians, making it more relevant than ever to students and employers. And we’ve retained the lunchtime ski breaks so that those of you who want to ski, including beginners, will have a chance to do so among friends and colleagues.

We should all be grateful for the support of our sponsors: IBM, Affymetrix, HP, Biodesix and Dharmacon. It is only with the help of our corporate sponsors that we can make this meeting as affordable as it is. Even more important than the money, is the intellectual contribution of these companies. The keynotes from Biodesix and IBM lay out some of the challenges we face and some of the resources we will need to address them. We are also thankful to the 2006 ISCB Overton Prize winner, Mathieu Blanchette, who donated his financial award to this conference to enable us to keep student registration fees low. The meeting would simply not be possible without organizational help from the ISCB staff, as well as from Kathy Thomas at the University of Colorado School of Medicine.

Many of you have contributed $5 to join the Rocky Mountain Regional Bioinformatics group, an affiliate of the ISCB. So far, the only activity of the Group has been to organize this meeting. If you are interested in volunteering to get something else going, please talk to Larry Hunter.

We hope you enjoy the science, the company, and the spectacular scenery of the Rocky Mountains. Welcome!

Larry Hunter
Susan C. Trapp
Rocky '06 co-chairs

TOP