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Newsletter Archives

  1. ISCB MEMBERSHIP AND SUBSCRIPTION UPDATES
  2. OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS DELAYS
  3. NEW ISCB OFFICERS AND BOARD MEMBERS
  4. FOURTH ANNUAL INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE IN COMPUTATIONAL
    MOLECULAR BIOLOGY RECOMB 2000
  5. COLD SPRING HARBOR LABORATORY PRESS
  6. APBioNet AND A-IMBN COOPERATIVE EFFORTS

ISCB MEMBERSHIP AND SUBSCRIPTION UPDATES
There has been some confusion about ISCB subscription benefits, and we are still improving the procedures we follow with the publishers. We are also just getting our own renewal system together. This article should help clear up the confusion, and note some current difficulties. First, subscription benefits, like ISCB membership itself, are provided on a calendar year basis, that is, membership and associated subscriptions run from January 1 to December 31 no matter when during the year you join. If you join the Society after the last issue of the journal has been published for the year, you will be automatically enrolled for the following year. Membership renewal notices will go out in the fall, and using our renewal form will be the best way to ensure getting the Society discounts on our publications. Currently, Oxford University Press, the publisher of the Society journal Bioinformatics, is in the process of updating its computer systems, and is unable to process anything until September 30. We regret that this may have adversely affected some of our members, and we will catch up as soon as possible after the system is running. Basic membership includes electronic access to the Society journal, Bioinformatics. You should receive your eight digit subscriber number shortly after joining the Society. Currently the process for generating this involves manual intervention. In the future, we hope to automate this process so that your access to the journal is effective immediately after payment of your dues. Many members also take advantage of the other affiliated Society publications. The Journal of Computational Biology recently sent erroneous renewal notices to many Society members; they did not mention the Society benefit, nor use the discounted Society price. If you renew your Journal of Computational Biology subscription as part of your membership renewal, there should be no problems. We appreciate your patience with us as we work out these growing pains. If you have any questions or problems, please contact the Society administrator, Janice Cole or the publications committee chair, Russ Altman.

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS DELAYS
It is with regret that as of 1st September Oxford University Press will not be able to process any new orders, address changes, cancellations, etc. until the 30th September when our new computer system is due to go live. It is unfortunate that we have to stop processing on our current computer system for such a long period of time but we have been told by our IT department that doing this will minimize the amount of problems that may occur when we convert to the new system. We apologize for the inconvenience this may cause you. Kind regards,
Sarah White (Miss)
Customer Service Controller (Society Liaison)
Journal Subscriptions Department
E-mail: whitesa@oup.co.uk
For more information on all our journals log on to: http://www3.oup.co.uk/journals


NEW ISCB OFFICERS AND BOARD MEMBERS
The ISCB held its annual board meeting at the ISMB'99 conference in Heidelberg, Germany last month. We elected new officers, and new Board members. The new officers are: President-elect: Russ Altman
Treasurer-elect: Teri Klein
Vice President: Tom Lengauer
Secretary: Terry Gaasterland The current President (Larry Hunter) and Treasurer (David States) will serve until the next board meeting, in June of 2000. The new board members are Barbara Bryant, Julio Collado-Vides, Michael Gribskov, Des Higgens, Anders Krogh, Chris Overton, and Gunnar von Heijne. With this infusion of new blood, we hope to make additional progress this year on ISCB membership services. If you have suggestions, or if you want to volunteer to help out, please contact the appropriate committee chair: For a complete list of board members go to: http://www.iscb.org/directors.html


FOURTH ANNUAL INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE IN COMPUTATIONAL MOLECULAR BIOLOGY (RECOMB 2000)
The Fourth Annual International Conference on Computational Molecular Biology
(RECOMB 2000)
April 8-11, 2000
Tokyo, Japan RECOMB 2000 will be held April 8-11, 2000 in Tokyo, Japan. The conference is sponsored by ACM-SIGACT. RECOMB is a general forum for novel research results in computational biology and bioinformatics. The scientific program consists of papers selected by the program committee and plenary lectures given by leading scientists in molecular biology and related fields. Papers reporting on original research (both theoretical and experimental) in all areas of computational molecular biology are sought. The deadline for submission of an extended abstract is September 30, 1999. For more information see http://recomb2000.ims.u-tokyo.ac.jp or contact recomb2000@ims.u-tokyo.ac.jp.


COLD SPRING HARBOR LABORATORY PRESS
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press would like to make a special offer to the members of the ISCB. Beginning in 2000, you can subscribe to its journal on Genome Research at a 25% discount. That translates to a rate of $90 (US) and $142 (rest of world) for 12 monthly issues beginning in January 2000. It also includes online access to the full text. The journal Genome Research focuses on genome studies in all species, and presents research that provides or aids in genome-based analyses of biological processes. The Journal is a nexus point where genomic information, applications, and technology come together with biological information to create a more global understanding of all biological systems. One important area for the Journal is presentation of reports on bioinformatics systems and software that are of interest to both producers and users of genomic information. New data in these areas are published as research papers in the form of articles and letters, or methods and resource reports. The Journal's web site offers opportunity to publish online supplementary material as well. The Journal also provides review articles, perspectives, and Insight/Outlook articles, which present commentary on the latest advances published both here and elsewhere, placing progress in these areas in its broader context. Genome Research bridges the technology and biology gap by providing one of the few arenas where the two are presented together. If you're interested in subscribing to Genome Research at the 25% discount, please call Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press at 516-349-1930, or fax them at 516-349-1946, or e-mail them at cshpress@cshl.org. In each case, you must identify yourself as a member of ISCB in order to get the discount.

APBioNet and ASIA PACIFIC EFFORTS
Asia Pacific's effort at bioinformatics picks up speed with recent cooperation between APBioNet and A-IMBN. Although bioinformatics in the Asian part of the Pacific Rim is still in its infancy, there are pockets of emerging strengths in research and a general increase in awareness of its importance. Blazing the trail ahead for the region is the Asia Pacific Bioinformatics Network (APBioNet)1, formed at the Pacific Biocomputing Symposium PSB'98 as the result of an APEC Bioinformatics Survey2. The APBioNet today has 22 institutional members from over a dozen countries, plus a mailing list of more than 150 members. In 1998, APBioNet rode on the advanced Internet infrastructure created by the Asia Pacific Advanced Network (APAN) consortium3 to set up an APBioNet-APAN advanced network project to link up Asia Pacific bioinformatics nodes with high performance next generation Internet2 type of access. A BioMirrors Project 4 to replicate basic biological databanks on key nodes in five countries has been successfully completed in mid-1999, and negotiations are in progress to extend this to the Data Storage Initiative (DSI) of the Internet2 initiative5. Through this infrastructure, the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in Los BaŅos, Philippines, was able to conduct a live video-conferenced bioinformatics talk with the remotely located speaker overseas; the Bioinformatics Centre (BIC) in Singapore was able to solve protein crystal structures at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lab (SSRL) using realtime remote data collection. Researchers in Singapore, Indiana University and the Australian National University were able to perform high performance phylogenetic analyses at the Supercomputing'98 conference using shared compute servers in a meta-computational grid. Several weeks ago, the APBioNet teamed up with the Asia-Pacific International Molecular Biology Network (A-IMBN)5 in a joint meeting during the 2nd A-IMBN annual conference in Singapore to discuss the possibility of cooperation among its members who represent the top molecular biologists and biotechnologists in the region. The proposed joint initiative was to provide advanced bioinformatics resources, training, workshops and research collaborators through the use of advanced applications over the APAN network. The A-IMBN Governing Council has given the go-ahead for partnership with APBioNet in matters bioinformatics. This will pave the way for bioinformatics to be introduced to the top labs in the Asia Pacific region in an organized and progressive manner. Said the Executive Director of A-IMBN, Dr Gurinder Shahi, who played a key role in A-IMBN to drive this tie-up with APBioNet, "If consensus is reached, A-IMBN and APBioNet will be able to work synergistically together to identify priority needs and to coordinate bioinformatics training and research collaboration opportunities. There is substantial potential for a win-win situation." Reported by Tan Tin Wee, APBioNet Coordinator
August 1999 To join the APBioNet, check out http://www.apbionet.org/join.html
  1. APBioNet. http://www.apbionet.org/
  2. Asia Pacific Bioinformatics Survey - report to the APEC Telecommunications Working Group http://www.apbionet.org/docs/apec-16TEL-report.html
  3. PAN - http://www.apan.net/
  4. BioMirror Project - http://biomirror.us.apan.net/
  5. DSI - http://dsi.internet2.edu
  6. A-IMBN - http://www.a-imbn.org/
Copyright © 1999 International Society for Computational Biology. All rights reserved.