ISCB Newsletter 8-2

Submitted by Marta de la Riva, Local Organizing Committee

The fourth annual European Conference on Computational Biology (ECCB/05) will be an excellent opportunity for all who attend the congress to foster relations between bioinformatics, biotechnology and bio-pharmaceutics companies and other agents involved in this sector at an international level.

This fourth edition of the ECCB and sixth session of the Jornadas de Bioinformatica (JBi - the annual meeting of Spanish Bioinformatics Network) will cover the top subject matters in bioinformatics, such as databases, protein structure and function, genes and genomes, microar-rays, phylogenetics, SNPs, Systems Biology, Algorithms, etc.

In a unique twist this year, the organizers are preparing for an interactive event in which professionals from the bioinformatic sector can exchange ideas and experiences. The keynote speakers are to be presented in pairs of constrasting views by Jean Michel Claverie and Temple Smith for "Perspectives in Bioinformatics"; Ewan Birney and Tom Gingeras for "How complete is knowledge of the Genome Sequence"; and Richard Durbin and Chris Sander for "The future of Systems Biology".

Throughout the program of talks and keynote addresses we hope to present an important scientific contribution that will provide members of the different countries and the national and international societies represented in the various geographical areas with much to talk about and further explore long after the closing session. The ECCB conference is a great opportunity to fulfill these goals, and we hope to count with the endorsement of our colleagues for the consolidation of our activities in bioinformatics.

The whole will take place in the cosmopolitan and entertaining Spanish capital, Madrid. We invite you all and as the host we will do our best to make you feel welcome in Madrid and hope that this meeting will allow us to deepen our bonds of science, companionship and friendship.