Awards Nominations Deadline - TODAY 02 December

Submit your nomination for one of these annual awards today.  

The program is nomination based and we strong encourage the submission of nominations that are diverse in nature.

The award winners will be announced in Spring 2021.

Awards Nominations Deadline - 02 December

Submit your nomination for one of these annual awards today.  

The program is nomination based and we strong encourage the submission of nominations that are diverse in nature.

The award winners will be announced in Spring 2021.

Register online to attend RSGDREAM 2020

November 12, 2020 at 11:00 AM EST, The Illusion of Inclusion — The “All of Us” Research Program and Indigenous Peoples’ DNA by Keolu Fox, hosted by ISCB

Raw data, including digital sequence information derived from human genomes, have in recent years emerged as a top global commodity. This shift is so new that experts are still evaluating what such information is worth in a global market. In 2018, the direct-to-consumer genetic-testing company 23andMe sold access to its database containing digital sequence information from approximately 5 million people to GlaxoSmithKline for $300 million. Earlier this year, 23andMe partnered with Almirall, a Spanish drug company that is using the information to develop a new antiinflammatory drug for autoimmune disorders. This move marks the first time that 23andMe has signed a deal to license a drug for development.

Eighty-eight percent of people included in large-scale studies of human genetic variation are of European ancestry, as are the majority of participants in clinical trials. Corporations such as Geisinger Health System, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, AncestryDNA, and 23andMe have already mined genomic databases for the strongest genotype–phenotype associations. For the field to advance, a new approach is needed. There are many potential ways to improve existing databases, including “deep phenotyping,” which involves collecting precise measurements from blood panels, questionnaires, cognitive surveys, and other tests administered to research participants. But this approach is costly and physiologically and mentally burdensome for participants. Another approach is to expand existing biobanks by adding genetic information from populations whose genomes have not yet been sequenced — information that may offer opportunities for discovering globally rare but locally common population-specific variants, which could be useful for identifying new potential drug targets.

Hosted by:

Awards Nominations Deadline - 02 December

Submit your nomination for one of these annual awards today.  

The program is nomination based and we strong encourage the submission of nominations that are diverse in nature.

The award winners will be announced in Spring 2021.

The ISCB-LA SoIBio BioNetMX 2020 Symposium will feature six keynote speakers, 27 talks, a Women in Stem panel and over 50 posters. Participants will have the opportunity to interact with the speakers and poster presenters throughout the event and during designated networking periods. Scientific content will be available starting Oct. 27 and will be streamed on a live broadcast schedule Oct 28-29 with live Q&A.

Space is limited and complimentary, workshops & tutorials will take place online on October 22nd to 27th.

October 8, 2020 at 1:00PM EDT, Indigenous Voices in Computational Biology: An Introduction to Ethical Genomic Research with Indigenous People by Rene Begay, hosted by ISCB

Indigenous communities through the world have distinct languages, culture, political structures, and ways of knowing. For too long, these communities have been exploited for material goods, land, and more recent for biospecimens. It is important to note that Indigenous people are not anti-science but rather support science that includes their intrinsic perspectives and expertise. Indigenous scientists are emerging across the world bridging science, policy, technology, and Indigenous ways of knowing to determine how their communities can benefit from genomic and clinical health research. The Indigenous Voices in Computational Biology series from the ISCB Academy will highlight the work conducted by Indigenous researchers in the United States, New Zealand, and other countries. Topics will include genomic data sharing, ethical engagement with Indigenous peoples in paleogenomics, and how to responsibly conduct research on Indigenous ancestors (ancient DNA). As a result, Indigenous scientists have developed their own Native biobank and hosted an international Indigenous genomics conference to discuss ethical concerns within their communities and present community based genomic research that integrates Indigenous knowledge. This presentation will introduce the series overarching themes and provide the framework that encourages ethical engagement with Indigenous communities in genomic research.

Hosted by:

• October 08, 2020 at 1:00PM EDT, Indigenous Voices in Computational Biology: An Introduction to Ethical Genomic Research with Indigenous People by Rene Begay, hosted by ISCB
  
  
• October 15, 2020 at 11:00AM EDT, Altered RNA Splicing by Mutant p53 Activates Oncogenic RAS Signaling in Pancreatic Cancer by Luisa Escobar-Hoyos, hosted bv iRNA COSI and RNA Society
  
  
• November 12, 2020 at 11:00AM EST, The Illusion of Inclusion — The “All of Us” Research Program and Indigenous Peoples’ DNA by Keolu Fox, hosted by ISCB

The RECOMB/ISCB Conference on Regulatory and Systems Genomics invites abstracts for consideration for oral presentations or participation in a poster session. Abstracts may be either original unpublished work or original work that was published or accepted for publication in a high-impact journal between January 1, 2020 and November 1, 2020. Unpublished work will be considered for either an oral or poster presentation.

Some possible topics include:

• Network visualization and analysis
• Regulatory motifs and modules
• Epigenomics and chromatin state
• Non-coding RNAs
• Regulatory networks
• Co-transcriptional, post-transcriptional, and translational regulation
• Signal transduction networks
• Genetic, molecular, and phenotypic variation and human disease
• Cellular signatures of biological responses and disease states
• Mathematical modeling and simulation of biological systems
• Methods for systematic validation of high-throughput biological predictions
• Single-cell transcriptomics
• Single-cell proteomics
• Metabolomics
• Microbiome
• Machine learning methods for systems biology
• Translational systems biology

• Author notifications will occur on or around Monday, October 19, 2020

September 30, 2020 at 11:00AM EDT, RAxML-NG: a fast, scalable and user-friendly tool for maximum likelihood phylogenetic inferenceI by Alexey Kozlov and Alexandros Stamatakis, hosted by EvolCompGen COSI

Phylogenies are important for fundamental biological research, but also have numerous applications in biotechnology, agriculture and medicine. Finding the optimal tree under the popular maximum likelihood (ML) criterion is known to be NP-hard. Thus, highly optimized and scalable codes are needed to analyze constantly growing empirical datasets.

We present RAxML-NG, a from-scratch re-implementation of the established greedy tree search algorithm of RAxML/ExaML. RAxML-NG offers improved accuracy, flexibility, speed, scalability, and usability compared with RAxML/ExaML. On taxon-rich datasets, RAxML-NG typically finds higher-scoring trees than IQTree, an increasingly popular recent tool for ML-based phylogenetic inference (although IQ-Tree shows better stability). Finally, RAxML-NG introduces several new features, such as the detection of terraces in tree space and the recently introduced transfer bootstrap support metric.
The code is available under GNU GPL at https://github.com/amkozlov/raxml-ng. RAxML-NG web service (maintained by Vital-IT) is available at https://raxml-ng.vital-it.ch/.

Hosted by:

• October 02, 2020 at 11:00AM EDT, Evolutionary origins of SARS-CoV-2 and tracking its spread using phylodynamic data integration by Philippe Lemey, hosted by ISCB
  
  
• October 08, 2020 at 1:00PM EDT, Indigenous Voices in Computational Biology: An Introduction to Ethical Genomic Research with Indigenous People by Rene Begay, hosted by ISCB
  
  
• October 15, 2020 at 11:00AM EDT, Altered RNA Splicing by Mutant p53 Activates Oncogenic RAS Signaling in Pancreatic Cancer by Luisa Escobar-Hoyos, hosted bv iRNA COSI and RNA Society
  
  
• November 12, 2020 at 11:00AM EST, The Illusion of Inclusion — The “All of Us” Research Program and Indigenous Peoples’ DNA by Keolu Fox, hosted by ISCB