ISCB Affiliated Groups
| ASIA and AUSTRALIA |
Contact: Christian Schönbach (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
Nazarbayev University
School of Sciences and Humanities
Department of Biology
53 Kabanbay Batyr Ave
Astana 010000, Kazakhstan
Geographical area included: Asia Pacific
Leadership Structure: January 2020-December 2022
President: Mohammad Asif Khan, Bezmialem Vakif University, Turkey; Perdana University, Malaysia
Vice President: Christian Schönbach, Nazarbayev University, Kazakhstan
Treasurer: Kenta Nakai, The University of Tokyo, Japan
Secretary: Harpreet Singh, Bioinformatics Centre, Indian
Council of Medical Research, India
Executive Committee Members:
Yam Wai Keat, International Medical University, Malaysia
Yun Zheng, Kunming University of Science and Technology, China
Ge Gao, Center of Bioinformatics, Peking University, China
Hilyatuz Zahroh, Universitas YARSI, Indonesia
Zeti-Azura Mohamed-Hussein, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Malaysia
Co-opted Executive Committee Members:
Prash Suravajhala, BioClues, India
Gitanjali Yadav, National Institute of Plant Genome Research, India
Nor Afiqah Aleng, Universiti Malaysia Terengganu, Malaysia
Kiyoko F. Aoki-Kinoshita, Soka University, Japan
Sarinder Kaur, University Malaya, Malaysia
Goals: APBioNet The Asia-Pacific Bioinformatics Network (APBioNet; https://www.apbionet.org/) is a nonprofit, onn-governmental, international organization founded in 1998 that focuses on the promotion of bioinformatics in the Asia-Pacific region.
APBioNet is dedicated to the advancement of the field of bioinformatics, specifically the development of bioinformatics network infrastructure, the exchange of data and information, the development of training programs, workshops and symposia and the encouragement of collaborations in the field of bioinformatics with an Asia Pacific focus.
Vision: Advance the understanding and application of bioinformatics in research, education and services in the Asia-Pacific region.
Mission: APBioNet’s mission, since its inception, has been to pioneer the growth and development of bioinformatics awareness, training, education, infrastructure, resources, and research among member countries and economies.
Objectives:
APBioNet is dedicated to:
• to the advancement of the field of bioinformatics and its development network infrastructure the exchange of data and information
• the encouragement of collaborations in the field of bioinformatics
• the development of training programs, workshops and symposia
Activities:
InCoB International Conference on Bioinformatics (https://incob.apbionet.org/); annually since 2002, 200-300 participants
The 21st International Conference on Bioinformatics (InCoB 2022 https://cbrcconferences.kaust.edu.sa/incob2022) was held as a virtual conference Nov 21-23, 2022 and organized by KAUST Computational Bioscience Research Center (CBRC) in partnership with APBioNet; 253 participants (76 international; 177 local)
InSyB International Symposium on Bioinformatics, annually since 2017, 80-120 participants.
The 6th International Symposium on Bioinformatics (InSyB2022 https://www.apbionet.org/insyb-2022-call-for-participation/) was held virtually together with 3rd Bioinformatics and Biodiversity Conferences (BBC) in conjunction with 2nd Synthetic Biology and Biotechnology Conference (SBB) 2022, Nov. 5-6, 2022. The theme of this combined event was "Omics Study for Environment and Human Health ”. InSyB2022 was attended by 143 particpants (talks: 39; posters 1. submitted abstracts: 46)
APBioNET organizes together with Association for Medical and Bio-Informatics, Singapore (AMBIS), Perdana University, Malaysia and Bezmialem Vakıf University, Turkey and supported by National Supercomputing Centre, Singapore and Alterquo, Malaysia a series of online Bioinformatics Workshop Fiesta (BWF 2020/2022 http://www.ambis.org.sg/bwf-202022.html). Two workshops were held in 2022.
APBioNetTalks (https://apbtalks.apbionet.org/) was lauchned in 2020. It is platform with the simple mission of empowering the community through bioinformatics learning, education, and training. In 2022 two talks were delivered in Sep and Oct 2022.
APBioNet has launched a Student Ambassador Program (SAP https://www.apbionet.org/student-ambassador-program-sap/). SAP's objective is to create an opportunity for graduate students (the Student Ambassador (SA)) from Asia-Pacific geographical regions to hone bioinformatics-based research skills through a student exchange program and to contribute to APBioNET’s activities. Seven Mentors were appointed for 2022 (India 4; Japan 2; Singapore 1)
Activities and programs that demonstrate the advancement of bioinformatics and computational biology:
APBioNet supports every year between 4-6 students to attend InCoB from its Travel Fellowship program http://incob2019.org/travel-grant/. This program was suspended during COVID-19 pandemic.
APBioNet is a Gold member of Global Organisation for Bioinformatics Learning, Education and Training (GOBLET).
For the time being a candidate for hosting InCoB 2023 has been identified in Australia.
InCoB2024 will be part of the Asia-Pacific Bioinformatics Joint Congress 2024 (APBJC 2024, Oct 21-24, 2024) in Okinawa, Japan. APBioNet has initated discussions and planning more than two years ago. This year involved parties came to an agreement on the dates and venue. The congress will be organized by JSBi, APBioNet, ISCB, GOBLET, Bioclues Organization, MaSBiC, and MABBI.
ABPBioNet proposed to publish an article on Grand Challenges in Bioinformatics Education (https://www.apbionet.org/bgcc/) and is working with members of other Societies including Goblet and ISCB towards this goal. The final version of the manuscript is expected to be submitted in December 2022.
APBIoNet is present in the following social media: Facebook: 889 followers (6% increase); Twitter: 616 followers (24% increase); MailChimp 1682 subscribers (25% increase) ; Since 2016 13 newsletter were published on https://www.apbionet.org/newsletter/.
Last Updated January 06, 2023
Contact: Dr Annette McGrath
CSIRO’s Data61
41 Boggo Road
Dutton Park
QLD 4102
Australia
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(61 7) 3833 5629
Geographical area included: Australia
Leadership Structure: ABACBS Executive Committee 2022:
President: Jimmy Breen
Vice-President: Jessica Mar
Treasurer: Mirana Ramialison
Secretary: Anna Trigos
Past-President: Aaron Darling
Ordinary Member: Ellis Patrick
Ordinary Member: Matt Field
Ordinary Member: Richard Edwards
Ordinary Member: Shila Ghazanfar
Professional Bioinformatician Representative: Amit Kumar
Postdoctoral/ECR Representative: Feargal Ryan
Student Representative: Sachintha Wijegunasekara
Goals: The Australian Bioinformatics And Computational Biology Society (ABACBS, pron.ˈabəkəs) is focused on the science and profession of bioinformatics and computational biology in Australia.
ABACBS aims to
1. strengthen the science and profession
2. encourage and support students
3. provide representation and advocacy
4. promote interaction and awareness
of bioinformatics and computational biology.
The vision of ABACBS is
1. for people to understand why bioinformatics and computational biology are important
2. for excellence in the science and profession of bioinformatics and computational biology
3. for good career opportunities in bioinformatics and computational biology.
ABACBS has emerged from broad consultation with the Australian bioinformatics and computational biology community, initiated by the Australian Bioinformatics Network in 2013. It was felt that there was a high level of support for a professional society representing Australian bioinformaticians and computational biologists. The Society was incorporated in November 2014, and the first executive committee was formed. The first national annual ABACBS conference was held in Sydney in 2015. ABACBS is a young society with an exciting future. We are keen to pursue opportunities for an annual conference as well as support special interest groups.
Activities:
ABACBS supports Bioinformaticians and Computational Biologists in Australia through the following activities:
1. Advocacy
a. These include sub-committees for various levels of career stage and situation
2. Society events
a. Annual Research Conference at the end of November each year
b. Seminar Series
c. Subcommittee events
3. Awards
Advocacy & Special Interest Groups
The society has five Special Interest Groups and a number of specific event committees
- COMBINE Student Group:
- Postdoctoral Research Sub-committee
- Diversity and Inclusion Sub-committee (New in 2023)
- Education and Training Sub-committee
- Professional Bioinformaticians Group
- Events based Sub-committees
- BioC Asia
- Sydney Bioinformatics Symposium
- Victorian Cancer Bioinformatics Symposium
Awards and honours
Despite having a virtual conference in Hobart last year, we were able to present a number of our society awards.
- OUTSTANDING CONTRIBUTION BY AN EARLY CAREER RESEARCHER: Rebecca Poulos (University of New South Wales)
- SENIOR FELLOW: Jean Yang & Andreas Schreiber
- OUTSTANDING PHD THESIS AWARD: Ryan Wick (Monash University) & Yingxin Lin (University of Sydney)
For 2022 we have been lucky enough to have support from Australian Research Data Commons (https://ardc.edu.au) to fund two awards to highlight the amazing work that members do in the development and maintenance of critical scientific software. Each award will receive $2,500. Due to this we have split the OPEN SOURCE & OPEN SCIENCE AWARD into two new awards:
- “TORSTEN SEEMANN” OUTSTANDING BIOINFORMATICS SOFTWARE DEVELOPER AWARD: Named after one of Australia’s most well-known and respected developer of scientific software Torsten Seemann (Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity), this award recognises an outstanding EMCR bioinformatic software developer from the Australian community with a view to promoting further efforts to develop and share bioinformatics methodologies.
- Awarded to Michael Roach (Flinders University)
- OUTSTANDING BIOINFORMATICS SOFTWARE MAINTAINER AWARD: This award recognises bioinformaticians from the Australian community who provide outstanding levels of support and maintenance for widely used bioinformatics software. This award aims to promote efforts amongst our community members to document, maintain and support high quality bioinformatics software.
- Awarded to Catherine Bromhead (University of Melbourne)
Society Events
ABACBS National Seminar Series
The ABACBS national seminar series continued in 2022 run by the ABACBS subcommittee consisting of Matt Field, Ariane Mora and Gabe Foley. Running from April - November, the series routinely had 50-100 attendees with >400 unique attendees during the 2022 series. Since the seminar series began in September 2020, we have achieved gender equity with 21 female and 21 male speakers. We also have prioritised highlighting early career speakers with 24 of 42 speakers being EMCR. Finally, we aimed to promote speakers from outside large urban regions and one third of all speakers were from remote and regional Australia.
Annual Conference
Our most recent conference was in Melbourne (November 28-December 2nd). This was the first meeting held in person for a number of years after virtual conferences in Canberra and Hobart due to COVID. We had 488 people register to attend across the week long events, with 1085 total attendees including virtual participants. COMBINE hosted a student day and we had multiple special interest groups meetings and workshop events hosted by RMIT on Thursday and Friday. The main conference was held at the City campus of Monash University and was convened by Mirana Ramialison and Nick Wong. BioC Asia, who is also a subcommittee of ABACBS, also had a special event at RMIT on Thursday morning.
In 2023, we are pleased to be partnering with ISCB for the ABACBS conference, which will be held in Brisbane.
ABACBS NHMRC Investigator Grant Strategy Workshop
In August, ABACBS hosted a workshop targeting bioinformaticians who were interested in applying for NHMRC fellowships. These fellowships provide 5-years of funds designed to simultaneously fund a researcher’s salary and project. While extremely desirable, low success rates make obtaining such funding extremely challenging. Bioinformaticians working in health and medical research are eligible for these grants however they may struggle to address specific grant criteria.
In this workshop, ABACBS organisers Matt Field and Jimmy Breen assembled four successful bioinformaticians with Investigator grants to share their insights and strategies; namely Professor Melanie Bahlo, Professor Alicia Oshlack, A/Prof Ulf Schmitz, and Dr Quan Nyugen. The workshop was attended by almost 100 individuals and feedback was extremely positive. Next year ABACBS will investigate running a similar workshop for ARC fellowships.
COMBINE events
In total COMBINE hosted eight events.
1. Computational workshops
a. Introduction to R (2 events)
b. Introduction to Python
2. Social Events
a. Adelaide Bioinformatics Student Event
b. Melbourne Trivia night
3. Industry fireside careers discussion with Bioinformaticians in Industry roles
Activities and programs that demonstrate the advancement of bioinformatics and computational biology:
ABACBS 2023 conference, with COMBINE Symposium, to be held in Brisbane, Dec 2023.
Last Updated July 14, 2023
Contact: Nagarajan Raju (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) Outreach Chair and Prashanth Suravajhala, PhD, Founder
Mailing Address: Bioclues.org, Kukatpally, Hyderabad 500072
US Phone: +1-541-666-9547
Geographical area included: India
Leadership Structure: Bioclues Executive Team (BET):
Founders: Prashanth Suravajhala, PhD. and Pritish Varadwaj, PhD.
Advisors: GPS Raghava, PhD., Dr. Jayaraman Valadi, N Srinivasan, PhD., HA Nagarajaram, PhD., Krishna Mohan Medicheria, PhD., R Keshavachandran, PhD., Pratap VV Reddy, PhD and more.
President: GPS Raghava, PhD.
Vice President: Dr. Jayaraman Valadi
Outreach Chair: Nagarajan Raju, PhD
Chief Scientific Officer: N Srinivasan, PhD.
Entrepreneurship Chair: Mohankumar Megha
Mentoring Chair: Vishal Acharya, PhD
Research Chair: Sriparna Saha, PhD.
Women in Biology Chair: Manika Sehgal, PhD
Women in Biology Co-chair: Sujata Dhar and Dhatri Madduru
Treasurer: Saumyadip Sarkar
History: Was first founded by Prash Suravajhala and Pritish Varadwaj in 2005, virtual deployment began in mid 2006. BIOCLUES is acronymed for Bioinformatics Club for Experimenting Scientists. The organization was founded in 2005. It is a non-profit virtual organization for, by, and of the Indian Bioinformaticians. It is one of the fastest growing bioinformatics societies in India, currently serving over 3400 members from nearly 30 countries. We aim to bring together the Indian bioinformaticians, foster a strong working mentor–mentee relationship, provide access to bioinformatics resources, organize conferences and workshops besides imparting information about research, training, education, employment and current events and news from bioinformatics, genomics, and related fields. Bioclues adheres to Creative Commons License with the prime focus to help the Bioinformaticians in India to promote open access. In the year 2010, we have setup vision 2020 to ensure our thoughts are converted to actions by the said year.
Goal:
The purpose of this Organization is to promote the interaction among students, scientific professionals and industrialists through budding fields like Systems biology and Computational Biology
Vision:
• To create and disseminate consciousness of research in the field of Bioinformatics and systems biology through webinars
• Identify practicable knowledge drivers through a comprehensive look for computational biologists
• Impart a complete understanding of the principal bioinformatics algorithms and tools through interactive summaries, polls, discussions
• To provide an online project platform for mentoring graduate students, while bridging the interaction of students in the field of computational biology
• To cater the need of assimilating existing open source code and developing novel tools and webservers for research community
• To encourage women scientists take up bioinformatics
• To bridge the gap between academic and industry in terms of Bioinformatics and Bio IT
• (Immediate) Making 2020 Bioinformatics by the year 2020
• Reaching the unreached young scientists and researchers, encouraging them to lessen the scale of experimentation
• Making active Academicians and Entrepreneurs
Objectives:
The organization works on four avenues, viz. Mentoring, Outreach, Research and Entrepreneurship (MORE). We organize conferences, tutorials, trade and industrial shows, educative seminars, colloquiums, workshops so that the student-researchers are ignited in the upcoming facets of computational biology More at www.bioclues.org
Research focus area:
• Annotate and curate next generation sequencing (NGS) Datasets
• Genome Diversity and Coverage Distribution
• Pathway Analysis and Protein Interactions
• Functional Mapping with Gene Ontology
• Pipeline Development/Cloud interfaces
Last Updated May 11, 2021
Contact: Wataru Iwasaki
the University of Tokyo
5-1-5 Kashiwanoha, Kashiwa, Chiba 277-0882, Japan
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Geographical area included: Japan
Leadership Structure: President:
Yoshihiro Yamanishi
(Term April 2023- March 2025)
Vice President:
Michiaki Hamada
(Term April 2023- March 2025)
Board of Directors:
Shinya Oki (Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine)
Mayumi Kamada (Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto University)
Eiryo Kawakami (Advanced Data Science Project, RIKEN)
Kiyoko F. Aoki-Kinoshita (Glycan & Life Systems Integration Center (GaLSIC), Soka University)
Kengo Sato (School of System Design and Technology, Tokyo Denki University)
Yukako Tohsato (College of Information Science and Engineering, Ritsumeikan University)
Yayoi Natsume-Kitatani (National Institutes of Biomedical Innovation, Health and Nutrition)
Michiaki Hamada (Faculty of Science and Engineering, Waseda University)
Motomu Matsui (Graduate School of Frontier Sciences, The University of Tokyo)
Riu Yamashita (National Cancer Center, Exploratory Oncology Research & Clinical Trial Center)
(Term 2022/04/01 - 2024/03/31)
Kiyoshi Asai (Graduate School of Frontier Sciences, The University of Tokyo)
Masanori Arita (National Institute of Genetics)
Wataru Iwasaki (Graduate School of Frontier Sciences, the University of Tokyo)
Masahito Ohue (School of Computing, Tokyo Institute of Technology)
Risa K Kawaguchi (Center for iPS Cell Research and Application, Kyoto University)
Masaaki Kotera (Preferred Networks Inc.)
Kana Shimizu (Faculty of Science and Engineering, Waseda University)
Hideo Matsuda (Graduate School of Information Science and Technology, Osaka University)
Hirotaka Matsumoto (School of Information and Data Sciences, Nagasaki University)
Sayaka Mizutani(School of Life Science and Technology, Tokyo Institute of Technology)
Yoshihiro Yamanishi (Graduate School of Informatics, Nagoya University)
(Term 2023/04/01 - 2025/03/31)
Goals: The Japanese Society for Bioinformatics (JSBi) was founded in 1999 for promoting researches and educational activities on bioinformatics as well as for promoting the relevant technologies and industries in Japan. JSBi also enhances international collaborations as an affiliated regional group of ISCB (International Society for Computational Biology) and a member of AASBi (Association of Asian Societies for Bioinformatics). In addition, JSBi played a key role in holding the longest running international bioinformatics conference, International Conference on Genome Informatics (GIW, former Genome Informatics Workshop), which originated in Japan.
Activities:
• JSBi annual meeting
• JSBi newsletter (2 issues per year)
• JSBi Bioinformatics Review
• Encyclopedia of bioinformatics (published in 2006)
• Bioinformatics introduction textbook
• Bioinformatics engineer examination
• Bioinformatics education curriculum
• Special interest groups and regional meetings
• As a founding member of the Association of Asian Societies for Bioinformatics (AASBi), JSBi supports GIW and other international bioinformatics meetings in the years they are held in Japan.
Activities and programs that demonstrate the advancement of bioinformatics and computational biology:
The most important event of JSBi is the General Meeting, which is held once a year and to which all the members are requested to participate. Until 2006, the General Meeting had been held as a part of an international meeting, GIW (International Conference on Genome Informatics, former Genome Informatics Workshop). Since GIW becomes an official meeting of AASBi from 2007, the General Meetings are held independently in Japan.
Holding Special Interest Groups (SIGs) and Regional Working Groups, presenting Oxford Journals-JSBi Prize, and publishing News Letters and Bioinformatics Reviews are also main activities of JSBi. Other activities include managing Bioinformatics Engineer Examination, developing a standard curriculum for bioinformatics education in universities and graduate schools, and editing the encyclopedia of bioinformatics and bioinformatics introduction textbook (in Japanese). The encyclopedia, written by hundreds of JSBi members and researchers in related areas, was published by Kyoritsu Shuppan. Co. Ltd.
Last Updated April 11, 2023
Contact: President : Doheon LEE, Ph.D., Professor
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)
E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
General Secretary : Tae-Min Kim, Ph,D., Professor
Catholic University of Korea
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KSBi Office : This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Tel +82-2-2135-2578
Geographical area included: Korea
Leadership Structure: President
Vice President
Auditor
Advisor
Special Advisory
Steering committee : General affairs, Planning affairs, Program affairs, Publication affairs, Industrial Collaboration affairs, Publicity affairs
Goal/mission:
• Promotion of bioinformatics research and development in Korea
• Sponsoring bioinformatics-related academic events such as symposia, workshops, discussion forums, etc in Korea
• Participation in basic and advanced bioinformatics education in Korea
• Supporting technological and industrial development in the area of bioinformatics in Korea
Brief history:
In Oct., 1998, a group of experts in the areas of life science and bioinformatics recognizing the importance of bioinformatics in the coming decades founded KSBi. Since then, experts from non-biology areas such as computer science, mathematics and so on joined it.
Activities:
• The 6th BIML(Bioinformatics and Machine Learning) :
Training workshop for researchers, academics, and industrial practitioners.
Jan. 30th~Feb. 1st, 2020.
number of participant : 350
Activities and programs that demonstrate the advancement of bioinformatics and computational biology:
• APBC-BIOINFO 2020
The joint conference, APBC(Asia Pacific Bioinformatics Conference)-BIOINFO 2020 is going to be held in Aug. 18th~20th.
• The 7th BIML workshop
The BIML workshop is planning on all the core and new topics in bioinformatics and computational genomics.
Last Updated July 14, 2023
