{ C O N T E N T S }
Volume 9, Issue 1

President’s Letter

Call for Leadership Nominations

ISCB Membership

URLs in Grant Proposals
Your Feedback Requested

Announcing MentorNet
E-Mentoring Program


ISMB 2006 News & Updates:

- ISMB 2006 Registration
Now Open

- SwissProt 20

- SIGs & Satellite Meetings

- Introducing the PLoS Track of Oral Presentations

- Student Council Symposium

- Help Send a Student to ISMB

- Advertise in the ISMB 2006 Newsletter


Other Conferences News
and Reports:

- RECOMB Celebrates 10 Years

- Affiliate Focus: OKBIOS

- Travel Fellowships Available

- Key Conferences: Key Dates



Student Travel Fellowships Yearbook

Bioinformatics Books New Online Features

Post your Events & News to ISCB Website

Upcoming Conferences & Events

News From the Field


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Copyright © 2006 International Society for Computational Biology.
All rights reserved.

The World’s Most Anticipated Bioinformatics Conference of 2006: ISMB in Brazil

 





Registration for ISMB 2006 in Fortaleza, Brazil, is now open at: ismb2006.cbi.cnptia.embrapa.br/reg.html

Goran Neshich of Embrapa/CNPTIA, Phil Bourne of University of California-San Diego, and Søren Brunak, University of Denmark, accepted the roles of ISMB 2006 Conference Chair, and Program Committee Co-Chairs respectively, and have done an amazing job of organizing this year’s conference logistics and the scientific programming. The end result will be a conference that is revered by other past and future conference organizers and talked about by all attendees for years to come. Some highlights of ISMB 2006 include many exceptional programming features you will not want to miss:

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS - lineup includes 3 NOBEL LAUREATES!

PAPERS
The Program Committee received 407 paper submissions this year, and selected 67 for oral presentation and publication in the conference proceedings. The paper titles and authors will be posted to the conference website soon, with the full papers available online via Bioinformatics journal approximately four weeks prior to the conference as part of Oxford Open, Oxford University Press’ open access publications. This level of freely available access to all published papers will make the research to be presented at ISMB fully available without subscription or purchase of the proceedings for the first time in the history of the conference.

PLOS TRACK OF ORAL PRESENTATIONS
The Public Library of Science is sponsoring the first ever PLoS Track of Oral Presentations, which will include selections from submitted one page abstracts without publication of a full research paper. Selected abstracts will be given a full 25 minute oral presentation slot, equal to that of a selected paper, in a parallel track to the paper presentations during two days of the conference. The deadline for submission to the PLoS Track is May 1, and approximately 20-25 abstracts are expected to be selected for oral presentation (see related article in this newsletter).

POSTERS
Submission of scientific research abstracts is available through May 1, for inclusion in the ISMB Poster Sessions. Additionally, there are still available spaces for industry posters; see ismb2006.cbi.cnptia.embrapa.br/sponsor_ops5.html for more details.

TECHNICAL DEMONSTRATIONS
Software & Hardware Technical Demonstrations of non commercial products allow participants to demonstrate novel software and/or hardware relevant to the bioinformatics community. These 50 minute demonstrations will be scheduled throughout the conference in parallel to the oral presentations of selected papers and abstracts. Academic (not for profit) Demos proposals are being accepted through May 8, with an acceptance notice date to submitters of June 5; see ismb2006.cbi.cnptia.embrapa.br/demos_academic_call.html for more details. For information on Industry (for profit) demos options see ismb2006.cbi.cnptia.embrapa.br/demos_call.html.

SPONSORS & VENDOR EXHIBITION
IBM leads the list of confirmed sponsors, as a Premier Sponsor of ISMB 2006. Each day of the conference IBM representatives along with other sponsors and exhibitors will be on hand to share detailed information about their products and publications within the vendor exhibition area, located at the vortex of all oral and poster presentation sessions. All sponsors and exhibitors offer products tailored to the needs of the bioinformatics community, and we encourage all conference delegates to visit each exhibit booth to thank them for their support of the conference, which helps keep the individual registrations fees low.

SIGS, SATELLITE MEETING AND TUTORIALS
Pre-conference educational options include Special Interest Group (SIG) meetings in parallel to the 3Dsig Satellite Meeting on August 4 and 5 (see related article in this newsletter), and a full day of Tutorial sessions on August 6. All delegates interested in attending a Tutorial session must be registered for the main ISMB conference, but SIG and Satellite Meeting registration is allowed independent of whether registering for ISMB or not. The option to attend only SIGs or the Satellite Meeting may be of particular interest to attendees of the SwissProt 20 (see related article in this newsletter) who cannot stay for the full ISMB but want to take advantage of the co-location of these two major scientific conference events. Registration for all of these sessions (except SwissProt 20) is made through the ISMB conference registration webpage.

STUDENT COUNCIL SYMPOSIUM
The ISCB-SC is organizing its second annual Student Council Symposium (SCS2), to be held on August 6 in parallel to the ISMB Tutorials at the Fortaleza Convention Center. This full day symposium will include invited speakers, selected oral abstracts, a poster session and more (see related article in this newsletter).

NETWORKING, NETWORKING, NETWORKING
In addition to all of the excellent keynotes and scientific sessions, networking always ranks high on everyone’s list of ISMB highlights. Opportunities for networking during the breaks, exhibition sessions, poster sessions and the off-site social event in Brazil should prove no exception, and may, in fact, set new benchmarks for future conferences to aspire to. The primary social event this year is sure to be a particular hotbed of networking opportunities, as every conference delegate will receive one complimentary ticket to the Brazilian Beach Party & Luncheon for the afternoon of August 9. Guest tickets are available for purchase to enable family and friends to join in the afternoon of fun and sun, including swimming, music, dancing, and the exotic Brazilian cocktail known as the “Caipirinha,“ all to be served up on one of Fortaleza’s famed white sand beaches.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ISMB is the annual conference of the International Society for Computational Biology, with the 2006 conference being hosted by Embrapa/CNPTIA and the LNCC/MCT, both Brazilian agencies with research centers developing Bioinformatics tools and applications. As a host of this conference, Embrapa has provided space on its servers for the conference website, and both Embrapa/CNPTIA and LNCC are providing the infrastructure for local staff and volunteers to do the work of assisting in the organization and implementation of the ISMB conference. Furthermore, the Associação Brasileira de Bioinformática e Biologia Computacional (AB3C), an ISCB Affiliated Regional Group, is providing numerous volunteers to serve on the Local Organizing and Local Arrangements Committees, including Ana Vasconcelos, LNCC Group Leader and AB3C President, as a Conference Co-Chair alongside Goran Neshich of Embrapa/CNPTIA. ISMB 2006 is pleased to recognize the 2nd Annual AB3C X Meeting as a joint meeting of the ISMB 2006, and as such will be featuring a number of conference sessions dedicated to issues of Latin American Bioinformatics and New Frontiers in Bioinformatics.

FOR MORE INFORMATION…
As additional news and updates are being posted daily, the most up-to-date information can be found on the conference website, and interested parties are encouraged to sign up for conference notices at www.iscb.org/ismb2006/prospects.php.