ANALYSIS

International Society for Computational Biology

The way biologists conduct has changed dramatically in recent decades, and this has and will continue to present significant challenges, argues ISCB President Professor Burkhard Rost

What is the secret to the International Society for Computational realised this. But ultimately the word is passion, meaning the passion of Biology’s (ISCB’s) success? the scientist and of people who are very motivated and able.

There is a very simple answer: passion. Intelligent Systems for Molecular Another secret to our success might lie in our change of focus. Scientists Biology (ISMB), ISCB’s main activity, began as a meeting – and are extremely good at putting in a lot of work for a deadline, but too remained that way for a decade. In 1997, we decided to move it to the overloaded for continued investment of time. Societies are intrinsically level of a society. In some sense the idea was to cement the future of structured around the idea that everybody contributes something every the meeting but also to hire personnel and have a budget so that many day, which is completely the opposite to the way scientists act. What we of the things done by scientists would be done by professionals hired for have done is rework the system to make it fit the people it represents. that purpose. Through what means does ISCB communicate the significance In recent years, I believe what has made ISCB so successful has been that of computational biology to the larger scientific community, it opened itself up to input from people with a lot of passion and ideas. governments and the public? Everybody who has contributed has felt that there is something growing and that they have contributed. It’s not a rigid, closed circle with only The major way in which we do this is through our meetings. Our largest some people in the know. Instead everybody can come, act, and create meeting is the ISMB conference, and then we have the ISMB European something important and new. In some sense, I feel proud that we have Conference on Computational Biology (ECCB), which is typically 66 INTERNATIONAL INNOVATION WWW.RESEARCHMEDIA.EU high enough. push. The field is ready foritas the demand for computationalbiologyis would begreat. Ibelieve that it’s achievable,butit clearly requires a next again overfive the years, thatmembership in we doubled If then. we were hovering around 1,200,so we have more than doubled since ISCB currently has3,000members. When IbecamePresident in2007, Can you summarise your goals for ISCBin the coming years? duplication of effort asmuchpossible. only solutioncomes from sharingasmuch we have andavoiding challenges cannotbehandledby singlegroups. We think that the supporting open access. One reason is we believe that big data Experimental Biology(FASEB) and we are the only memberclearly ISCB isamember of the Federation of American Societies for and technical research literature becomesareality? computational biology that open access to publicly funded scientific Do you believe itisnecessary for the advancement of incredible. is have with thetimethey resourcesbest saving todothe are biologists computational at otherdisciplines,thedegreewhich to look you We are ina field where weare always behind,so theprogress isamazing.If What progress hasbeenmadein this direction? information together. rapidly. A solutionispossible only if you cansomehowcollate the Decisions within hospitalsare aboutspeed,requiring data to behandled few roles this will playintoin the future, eg. for personalisedhealth. challenge isexplodinginimportancelifesciences. There are a sequencing. Big data isgrowing faster than computers; the big data that really has to do with the incredible advance of next-generation It’s immensely Itbecomesmore important. centralevery day and How important will big data analysis be to advancing the field? today butit will hit them ina few years’ time. fast enough. This isaproblem that already exists,it’s nothittingpeople will notreceive the optimal treatment because our computersare not go tothedoctor fiveif you years now,is thatfrom issue you next The a losingbattle. the growth of computersisgoing to solve this problem – we are fighting day andevery day Ican do less than the day before. There isno way that than a year. Currently, I’mmanagingaserver that runs1,000 queries a 18 months,butbiological databases are currently doubling inmuchless sequences are growing rapidly. Computers may double inspeedevery mine. with proteinsomething todo have These databasesof there that find out whatisknown,soIlookupin databases whatsequencesare out want to develop anew drug or askacertain question, my first stepis to In biology, data changesincredibly fast. To illustrate this, every time I What specificchallenges does theanalysis ofbiological datapose? of experimentalbiologynow. blurred, and why handling data properly isbecominganimportantpart the linebetweencomputationalandexperimentalbiologyisbecoming results nolongergive you aclearanswer, only aprobability. This is where throughput biologyhasbecome Increasingly,dominant. experimental less clearly in However,one experiment. over the last decade high- 20 years ago, abiologistasked a question andanswered itmore or career?course ofyour the Has the field ofcomputationalbiologyevolved significantly over Barcelona, Spain. Generation Sequencing (NGS)conference in June which will beheldin have focused meetings; for example, the nextinEurope will be the Next held once every two years, andISCB Asia takes placeevery year. We also Then there are regional meetings:ISCBLatin America andISCB Africa are attended by about2,000peopleandis the mainmeetingin the field. not beeasy to achieve. would bemuchlarger. That would bemy dream going forward, butit will that have numbersclose to several thousand, andif they alljoined,ISCB this is to becomea federated society. There are many nationalsocieties In many ways this isapersonal view, butIbelieve the only way to do THE DATE SAVE Conference 2014 Barcelona, Spain 2-4 June 2-4 June The NGS The NGS 22-24 October , de Janeiro,Rio © Eckert & Heddergott, TUM America 2014 ISCB Latin ISCB Latin

Cincinnati, Ohio, USA www.iscb.org 16-18 May 16-18 May Bioinformatics Conference Great Lakes Molecular Biology2014 Massachusetts, USA 11-15 July Systems for Intelligent Intelligent Boston, Boston,

ANALYSIS 67