UPCOMING CONFERENCE DEADLINES

ISMB/ECCB 2015 Highlights Submissions Close 27-February-15 ISCB Africa ASBCB Conference on Bioinformatics Early Registration Closes 02-February-15 Great Lakes Bioinformatics Conference (GLBIO 2015) Full Papers Submissions Close 11-February-15

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ISCB Buzz:  Conference Updates, SIGs at ISMB/ECCB 2015, Outgoing Board Members, FASEB Releases Report & DREAM9.5 Challenges

Book your Hotel for ISCB Africa & SAVE!
Join your colleagues for this 3 day conference featuring over 35 research presentations including 5 outstanding keynote speakers! Register today for non-stop networking, training & learning!.

Mark your calendar for the SIG line-up at ISMB/ECCB 2015!
ISMB/ECCB 2015 will hold a number of one and two-day specialized meetings in computational biology. These meetings consist of Special Interest Group Meetings (SIGs) and Satellite Meetings (SMs) and will be held prior to the main conference. A SIG meeting is a one- or two-day focused workshop. It provides a broad and/or deep perspective on developments in a field of research, and is intended as a way to address a topic more extensively than can be done in the main conference. .

VIZBI 2015: Early Registration Closing February 7!
VIZBI 2015, an Affiliate conference of ISCB, will take place on March 25-27 at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA. It features 21 invited talks from high-profile speakers on the state-of-the-art and challenges in visualizing a diverse range of biological data, an Art and Biology evening, and poster and breakout sessions!

FASEB Sustaining Discover Report
The Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) released an analysis of the threats to continued progress in biological and medical science research. Sustaining Discovery in Biological and Medical Science: A Framework for Discussion examines the challenges facing researchers and presents a series of recommendations to alleviate them.

The DREAM9.5 Challenges
We are pleased to announce that the DREAM Olfaction Prediction Challenge, the first of the DREAM9.5 Challenges is now open for participation. This Challenge focuses on predicting behavioral responses to a panel of odors, and features a first-of-its-kind dataset.

Thank you to the ISCB Outgoing Board Members!
As ISCB transitions leadership, we want to sincerely thank our outgoing board members, Erik Bongcam-Rudloff, Guilherme Oliveira, Avinash Shanmugam, & Hershel Safer, for their exemplary service. They have shown constant support and dedication to the growth and development of the Society over the past years. The Society hopes and encourages all past members to continue to be engaged in other society activities & initiatives.

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The International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB) announces new Fight Against Ebola Award

The Ebola virus (EBOV), causing the Ebola virus disease (EVD) maintains a high fatality that has killed over 5,000 individuals in the current outbreak from February to Nov 26, 2014. First reports assessing spreading risk have been published (Gomes, et al., 2014). Recently, 99 Ebola virus genomes from 78 patients have been analyzed (Gire, et al., 2014). To facilitate global research, the respective author team made all their data freely available. This laudable decision aligns with the ISCB Open Access policy (Lathrop, et al., 2011; Lathrop, et al., 2011).

In response to the immediate need for solutions in the field of computational biology against Ebola, The International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB) announces the Fight Against Ebola Award.  ISCB will give out the Fight Against Ebola Award, along with a prize of $2000, at its July 2016 annual meeting (ISCB ISMB 2016, Orlando, Florida). All computational approaches should include a significant component of Ebola research.  In the development of any modern drug, computational biology is positioned to contribute through comparative analysis of the genome sequences of Ebola strains, and 3-D protein modeling.  Other computational approaches to Ebola include large-scale docking studies of Ebola proteins with human proteins and with small-molecule libraries, computational modeling of the spread of the virus, computational mining of the Ebola literature, and creation of a curated Ebola database.  Taken together, such computational efforts could significantly accelerate traditional scientific approaches.

ISCB is dedicated to advancing the understanding of living systems through computation. ISCB now represents more than 3200 computational biologists working in over 70 countries. It organizes more than seven annual international meetings, and confers several major prizes, including the Accomplishments by a Senior Scientist Award, ISCB Innovator Award, the ISCB Overton Prize, and the ISCB Outstanding Contributions Award. With the ISCB Fight Against Ebola Award the society offers for the first time an award for a specific scientific objective thereby acknowledging the urgency of action to fight a rising challenge.
 
Submission and Judgment Criteria
The award will be conferred on the submission that most closely meets the goal of providing an immediate solution from the field of computational biology as assessed according to the following terms: (1) high impact, (2) broad access, (3) measurable outcomes on understanding, handling, treating, or preventing the disease, and (4) close interaction with established mechanisms of Ebola control and research.
 
A selected team comprising experts chosen from areas such as Ebola research, epidemiology, public health, computational virology, structural biology, vaccine development, translational bioinformatics, genomics, and genome analysis will assess all submissions. We will only consider submissions that remain within a limit of two pages. Please note that your submission could be in the style of a journal paper.  Be advised of the following constraints when fitting your material onto the two pages:  (1) the typeface must be Arial font throughout, using a minimum 9-pt font size for figures and a minimum of 10-pt Arial for the text. The precise minimum page margins depend on your choice of format (US-letter: a minimum of 1.25 inches on top and bottom and a minimum of 2.5 inches at the sides; A4: a minimum of 3 cm on top and bottom and a minimum of 1.5 cm on both sides.)

Submissions must be sent via email (a single PDF document) to Diane Kovats (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) using the text “Fight against Ebola Award” in the subject and body of the email. The deadline for submission is April 10, 2016 (any time zone).

Thank you to the ISCB Ebola Award Task Force for their hard work in the development of the award.  Those members include:

• Peter D. Karp, SRI International, United States of America,
• Bonnie Berger, MIT, Cambridge, United States of America,
• Thomas Lengauer, Max Planck Institute for Informatics, Germany,
• Michal Linial, Hebrew University & Institute of Advanced Studies, Israel,
• Pardis Sabeti, Harvard University, United States of America,
• Winston Hide, Harvard School of Public Health, United States of America,
• Burkhard Rost, TUM, Munich, Germany

* This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. (DK); This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. (BR)

Gire, S.K., et al. Genomic surveillance elucidates Ebola virus origin and transmission during the 2014 outbreak. Science 2014;345(6202):1369-1372.

Gomes, M.F.C., et al. Assessing the International Spreading Risk Associated with the 2014 West African Ebola Outbreak. PLOS Currents Outbreaks 2014.

Lathrop, R.H., et al. ISCB public policy statement on open access to scientific and technical research literature. Bioinformatics 2011;27(3):291-294.

Lathrop, R.H., et al. ISCB Public Policy Statement on Open Access to Scientific and Technical Research Literature. PLoS computational biology 2011;7(2):e1002014.

UPCOMING CONFERENCE DEADLINES

ISMB/ECCB 2015 Proceedings Submission Close 16-January-15 ISCB Africa ASBCB Conference on Bioinformatics ISCB-Africa Late-breaking Posters Submissions Close 28-January-15 Great Lakes Bioinformatics Conference (GLBIO 2015) Full Papers Submissions Close 01-February-15

Shop while you Support ISCB on AmazonSmile!

AmazonSmile is a simple and automatic way for you to support ISCB every time you shop, at no cost to you. When you shop at smile.amazon.com, you’ll find the exact same low prices, vast selection and convenient shopping experience as Amazon.com, with the added bonus that Amazon will donate a portion of the purchase price to ISCB! Sign up Now!

CONNECT WITH US

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CONTACT US

International Society for Computational Biology 9500 Gilman Drive MC 0505 San Diego, CA 92093-0505 Add us to your address book

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ISCB Buzz: Conference Deadlines, FASEB 2016 Science Awards, Cytoscape at RSG & the Advancement & Challenges in Computational Biology

ISMB Proceedings - Deadline: January 16!
ISMB/ECCB 2015 will bring together Bioinformaticians and Computational Biologists working in a wide range of disciplines, including molecular biology, biology, medicine, computer science, mathematics and statistics. Papers that demonstrate both the development of new computational techniques and their application to Molecular and Systems Biology, with significant outcomes to biomedical, agricultural, and environmental questions are especially encouraged.
 
GLBIO Proceedings - Deadline: February 1st!
Full length papers and abstracts are solicited for oral and poster presentations at the 10th Great Lakes Bioinformatics Conference, an official conference of the International Society for Computational Biology. This call is an invitation to scientists and professionals working in the fields of bioinformatics and computational biology to submit high quality original research papers for presentation at GLBIO 2015.
 
Africa Registration & Late-breaking Posters
ISCB-Africa ASBCB Bioinformatics Conference, open for registration, welcomes late-breaking original research poster submissions! Posters are intended to convey a scientific result that is original work, and are not advertisements for commercial software packages. Posters may cover any area of computational biology.  Click here for more information!
 
RECOMB 2015 Call for Posters & Highlights
RECOMB 2015 invites the submission of abstracts of papers that have been published in a journal after October 1, 2013 or papers that are "in press" at the time of submission and are already linked on the journal web site.
 
FASEB 2016 Excellence in Science Award Nominations!
FASEB is seeking nominations for its 2016 Excellence in Science Award that recognizes the significant accomplishments of women scientists. We look forward to another list of nominees that reads like a 'Who's Who' of international science, containing the names of outstanding women in science who have accomplished scientific work of lasting impact and have contributed substantially to training the next generation of scientists.
 
Cytoscape at RSG 2014!
The Cytoscape team was thrilled to be a part of this year's Regulatory and Systems Genomics conference along with DREAM Challenges. Thanks to support from the National Resource for Network Biology (http://nrnb) and Agilent Technologies, we were able to host a number of unique events integrated into the meeting.
 
Advancements & Challenges in Computational Biology
Ruth Nussinov, PhD, Editor-in-Chief of PLOS Computational Biology & ISCB Fellow gives a detailed perspective on significant computational biology advances of the last decade, and reflects on some key challenges ahead.

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ISCB MOURNS THE LOSS OF PETER SELLERS

ISCB mourns the loss of Rockefeller University mathematician Peter Sellers. Sellers was an early contributor to the theory of computing evolutionary distances between nucleotide sequences (PNAS 76(7):3041 1979). Through a four-plus decade career at Rockefeller, Dr. Sellers's research covered numerous problems at the intersection of mathematics and biology. His earliest collaborations with biologists were in the field of biochemical kinetics. Peter was also an accomplished sailor, who designed and built his own sailboat.

Online Registration Closing Soon for the 2014 RECOMB/ISCB Conference!

Please note online registration closes Tuesday, November 4, 2014, 5:00 p.m. Pacific Time. After this time registration will only be available onsite at the conference registration desk at the Wyndham San Diego Bayside, beginning on Monday, November 10 at 8:15 am.

Nominate Now!

Dear Colleagues,

Please help nominate papers in the field of Regulatory and Systems Genomics, that you've recently read and found to be of particular interest. Relevant areas include Motifs, Grammars, Networks, Systems, Variation, Disease, Personal Genomics, GWAS interpretation, Regulatory Evolution, Comparative genomics, Epigenomics, Physical modeling, Dataset Integration, Splicing regulation, transcriptional regulation, and all areas of gene and genome regulation at the systems level.

You can find the nomination form here: http://goo.gl/forms/ENlRYpOVhD

Please nominate papers that appeared between September 1st, 2013 and November 12, 2014. You can of course nominate a paper from your own group, but we ask that if you are doing so, to also take the time to nominate at least one paper that was not co-authored by you.

The nomination process will close on November 5th.

Our goal is to identify seminal papers that introduced not only new biological insights, but also key computational methodologies for interpreting biological datasets that have had and will continue to have a lasting impact in the field of Regulatory and Systems Genomics. These will be honored at an awards ceremony in the 2014 RECOMB/ISCB Meeting on Regulatory and Systems Genomics in San Diego on November 9-14, 2014. www.iscb.org/recomb-regsysgen2014

Thank you for your help and for being part of our community,

Manolis Kellis and Saurabh Sinha
Co-organizers, RegSysGen Top 10 Papers Reading List
ISCB Special Interest Group On Regulatory & Systems Genomics (RegSys SIG)
http://cosi.iscb.org/wiki/RegSIG:Home

Hot off the E-press!

The ISCB Fall 2014 Newsletter

Click through the exciting updates within the community and learn more about ISCB's new initiatives in the 2014 Fall Newsletter.

View the online program for the 2014 RECOMB/ISCB Conference on Regulatory & Systems Genomics Conference!

DREAM CHALLENGES This conference will also feature the ninth annual meeting of the Dialogue for Reverse Engineering Assessments and Methods (DREAM). We invite the scientific community to participate in this year’s DREAM Challenges, which have been designed to focus attention on important questions related to human health. Learn more about the DREAM Challenges.

November 9-14, 2014

Join us in San Diego, California for five full-packed days of science and networking. The conference will feature 13 keynote speakers, 49 talks, 8 Cytoscape Application talks, 2 Cytoscape Workshops, and over 12 DREAM Challenge and Best Performer presentations.

Discounted hotel rooms are still available! Act now before the conference rate expires on FRIDAY!

Don't miss this premier event in Regulatory and Systems Genomics!!

REGISTER NOW

Affiliates Representative to the ISCB Board of Directors Election Results!

ISCB Announces Affiliates Representative to the ISCB Board of Directors Election Results Horton Elected as the ISCB Affiliates Representative to Board of Directors
 
Paul Horton, PhD, has been elected as the newest  ISCB Affiliates Representative to the Board of Directors. Horton is presently the Director of the Computational Biology Research Center (CBRC) in Tokyo, Japan and is a visiting associate professor at the Graduate School for Frontier Sciences at Tokyo University. He is an active member of the Asia Pacific Bioinformatics Network (APBioNet) affiliate group and has served as an ISCB Board Member, and past ISCB Conferences Committee Chair.

Horton holds a PhD in computer science from the University of California, Berkeley, and has experience in both the academic and tech start-up sectors. Horton’s computational interests include programming, algorithm development, and applications of machine learning. Horton applies his computational approaches to better understanding several biological areas, including subcellular protein localization, motif discovery, genome alignment, and sequence processing.
 
Horton has worked at CBRC since 2003, first as a research team leader, and more recently, as its director. Horton is spearheading CBRC’s plan to make significant and useful contributions to the application of genomic data in medicine and biotechnology.
 
Horton has served the bioinformatics community in numerous capacities, including his work as an ISCB board member and trustee of the Japanese Society for Bioinformatics. He chaired the ISCB-Asia/SCCG 2012 conference and has also worked on conference committees for ISMB and other world-class bioinformatics meetings.  He is currently chairing the GIW ISCB-Asia conference, which will be held in December in Tokyo, Japan.  Horton is on the editorial boards of several bioinformatics journals and also advises graduate students at Tokyo University.
 
Horton’s diverse training and research experiences in the United States, Taiwan, and Japan have given him a valuable and unique perspective of the global bioinformatics community, which should serve him well in his new position as the affiliates representative.

Join us for the 2014 RECOMB/ISCB Conference on Regulatory & Systems Genomics Conference!

DREAM CHALLENGES This conference will also feature the ninth annual meeting of the Dialogue for Reverse Engineering Assessments and Methods (DREAM). We invite the scientific community to participate in this year’s DREAM Challenges, which have been designed to focus attention on important questions related to human health. Learn more about the DREAM Challenges.

Join us in San Diego, California for five full-packed days of science and networking.  The conference will feature 13 keynote speakers, 49 talks, 8 Cytoscape Application talks, 2 Cytoscape Workshops, and over 12 DREAM Challenge and Best Performer presentations.  

Discounted hotel rooms are still available!  Act now before the conference rate expires on FRIDAY!

Don't miss this premier event in Regulatory and Systems Genomics!!

REGISTER NOW