ISCB Newsletter 8-2

Welcome to ISMB 2005!

With the conference upon us, the various organizing committees have worked long hours to finalize arrangements to provide the most exciting conference this year in bioinformatics, ISMB 2005 in Michigan, With this year's central US venue, ISMB 2005 will present the greatest magnitude of bioinformatics and life sciences research and tools in the world, and we are very excited to offer the opportunity for attendees to participate in the many talks, as well as tutorials, poster sessions, software demonstrations, and exhibitions of hardware and software purveyors.

As of the time of this writing, we anticipate over 100 scientific paper presentations over the 5 days of the conference, accompanied by over 700 posters featured throughout the magnificent Marriott Renaissance Center in Detroit, Michigan. We expect a strong showing from industry and academic software production groups, with over 80 software demonstrations registered to date. This year, we will have 14 half-day tutorial sessions, and preceding the conference we are hosting eight one and two-day special interest group (SIG) meetings.

The team of ISMB 2005 conference organizers has devoted much time to brainstorming ideas and introducing new facets to ISMB in order to improve upon this already compelling and popular bioinformatics meeting. The Scientific Organizing Committee and the Logistical Organizing Committee worked together closely to add several new sessions to this year's agenda. These new sessions include: elevated posters/abstracts oral presentation, 2 NIH workshops, and an education workshop. Also new for this year, the organizers of ISMB, in association with the Public Library of Science, are featuring the PLoS Computational Biology Late Breaking Poster Session, which gave academic and non-commercial researchers an opportunity to submit their latest work to this much anticipated session.

In addition to the exciting science, we have also organized a Gala Dinner which will surely be a memorable night for all participants. Delegates are invited to board the Detroit Princess, a brand new premier cruising riverboat, for a special evening on the waters of the Detroit River.

For all who are with us at ISMB2005, we hope you enjoy the conference!