ISCB Newsletter 8-1

{ C O N T E N T S }
Volume 8, Issue 1

President’s Column

2005 Membership Registration
Don’t Delay!

ISMB 2005
Bound To Be the Best Yet

SIG Meetings
Kick-Off ISMB 2005

ISCB Thanks Sun
for Continued Support

KEY DATES
RECOMB, ISMB, ECCB

Calling All Leaders!

PLoS Computational Biology
Exciting Open Access Journal

Student Council
Announcements & Updates

Travel Fellowships Offered
Deadlines Approaching Fast

Public Affairs

Immigration Workshop
April 16, 2005 in San Diego

RECOMB 2005 Highlights

ECCB 2005

SCCB Computational Biology
Hebrew University of Jerusalem

News from the Field

Computational Biology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
The Sudarsky Center for Computational Biology (SCCB)

Submitted by Michal Linial, Director of SCCB

The Sudarsky Center for Computational Biology (SCCB) was inaugurated in January 2003 at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Following 18 months of its activity, we introduce the center to the ISCB community, in the hope that it may serve as a prototype for similar initiatives. Bioinformatics in Israel is growing and advancing very rapidly, with new educational programs being established in most academic institutions. The SCCB intends to help promote the field nationwide. The 7th meeting of the Israeli Bioinformatics Symposium drew a crowd of over 600 participants. It took place in Jerusalem (May 2004) with the sponsorship of the SCCB (see ISCB newsletter 7-3).

The SCCB is the first center of excellence in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology in Israel. The main goal set by the Center’s founder, Dr. Jermy Sudarsky from Los Angeles, is to encoursge talented young students to enter the graduate school in computational biology of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The SCCB encourages joint research among investigators from multiple disciplines including medical sciences, physics, computer science, technology, engineering and life science. This is reflected by its members affiliations: The Hadassah Medical School (Hanah Margalit, Amiram Goldblum and Itamar Simon), the Life Science Institute (Michal Linial and Shy Arkin) and the School of Computer Science and Engineering (Nir Fridman, Nati Linial and Naftali Tishby).

With a budget of about $150,000 a year the SCCB provides supplementary fellowships to over 20 excellent students whose research is within the arena of computational biology. As one of the main goals of the SCCB is to promote communication between our students and the entire community, travel fellowships are awarded to students to participate and contribute in major meetings and conferences in the field of Bioinformatics, Genomics, Proteomics, Computational Biology and System Biology.

At ISCB/ECCB 2004 in Glasgow, UK, last year the research conducted by the SCCB members and students was clearly noted by oral paper presentations (5), posters (10), web presentations (1), and SIG presentations (2). In the approaching RECOMB conference (May 2005) three of the presenting papers are contributed by members and students of the SCCB.

To learn more about The Sudarsky Center for Computational Biology (SCCB) see http://www.cbc.huji.ac.il.