ISMB 2008 Toronto The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Linial, Michal, Jill P. Mesirov, B. J. Morrison McKay, and Burkhard Rost. 2008. ISMB 2008 Toronto. PLoS Computational Biology 4(6): e1000094. Published Version doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000094 Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:11213310 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA Message from ISCB ISMB 2008 Toronto Michal Linial1,2, Jill P. Mesirov1,3, BJ Morrison McKay1*, Burkhard Rost1,4 1 International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB), University of California San Diego, La Jolla, California, United States of America, 2 Sudarsky Center, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel, 3 Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America, 4 Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics, Columbia University, New York, New York, United States of America the integration of students, and for the of ISMB. One meeting in South Asia support of young leaders in the field. (InCoB; http://incob.binfo.org.tw/) has ISMB has also become a forum for already been sponsored by ISCB, and reviewing the state of the art in the many another one in North Asia is going to fields of this growing discipline, for follow. ISMB itself has also been held in introducing new directions, and for an- Australia (2003) and Brazil (2006). nouncing technological breakthroughs. Multi-tracking in response to The International Society for Computa- ISMB and ISCB are contributing to the challenges posed by merging fields. tional Biology (ISCB) presents the Six- advance of biology, and to helping to build ISMB/ECCB 2007 considerably expanded teenth International Conference on Intel- bridges and understanding between dedi- the breadth of the meeting. ISMB 2008 in ligent Systems for Molecular Biology cated and passionate groups of scholars Toronto builds on its successful predecessor (ISMB 2008), to be held in Toronto, from an unusual variety of backgrounds. by keeping what worked, and by providing Canada, July 19–23, 2008. Now in the ISMB 1993–2008. The ISMB more open time for spontaneous exchange final phases of scheduling selected presen- conference series began in 1993, the and meetings. The main goal of ISMB is to tations, demonstrations, and posters, the result of the vision of David Searls contribute toward the success and enjoy- organizers are preparing what will likely (GlaxoSmithKline), Jude Shavlik (Univer- ment of science. In fact, scientific process is be recognized as the premier conference sity of Wisconsin Madison), and Larry highly dependent on good communication on computational biology in 2008. ISMB Hunter (University of Colorado). A few of results and nascent ideas. Creating outlets 2008 (http://www.iscb.org/ismb2008/) years later, ISMB had established itself as for such communication is therefore an will follow the road paved by the ISMB/ a primary event for the computational important catalyst for the advancement of ECCB 2007 (http://www.iscb.org/ biology community and triggered the computational biology. ismbeccb2007/) in Vienna in the attempt founding of ISCB, the International The major challenge for this interdisci- to specifically encourage increased partic- Society for Computational Biology plinary field is that two cultures with very ipation from previously under-represented (http://www.iscb.org/). ISCB has been different ways of publishing intersect. On disciplines of computational biology. This organizing the ISMB conference series the one hand, computational sciences conference will feature the best of the since 1998. While ISCB evolved into the publish their most important results in computer and life sciences through a only society representing computational rigorously reviewed proceedings of meet- variety of core sessions running in multiple biology globally, its flagship conference ings; the lower the ratio between accept- parallel tracks, along with single-tracked has become the largest annual worldwide ed/submitted papers, the more valued the Keynote Presentations, posters on display forum focused on computational biology. publication. Publications in conference throughout the duration of the conference, In January 2007, the ISCB came to an proceedings are often more highly regard- and an extensive commercial exposition. agreement with the European Conference ed than those in peer-reviewed scientific The first day (July 18) of the meeting is on Computational Biology (ECCB) to journals. In contrast, the life sciences reserved for two-day Special Interest Group organize a joint meeting in Europe every publish their best work in peer-reviewed (SIG) and Satellite meetings, the second day other year. This led to the ISMB/ECCB journals with the highest possible impact; (July 19) runs SIGs for the first time in in Vienna in 2007 that set the standard for journals with higher impact are ranked parallel with Tutorials and the Student a large-scale integrative forum for all those higher, and publications are not coupled Council Symposium, and for the first time with interest in subjects related to to presentations at any meeting. Open two SIGs are running in parallel with the computational biology. access publications attach value to the main ISMB meeting (July 20–23). ISCB is now focusing on expanding individual publication rather than to the participation beyond North America and specific vehicle. Thus, they may ultimately Introduction Europe, which has accounted for the offer a way to bring these two publication majority of participants during the history cultures together. However, this approach A considerable fraction of all the major scholars in computational biology fre- quently participate in ISMB. Consistent Citation: Linial M, Mesirov JP, Morrison McKay BJ, Rost B (2008) ISMB 2008 Toronto. PLoS Comput Biol 4(6): with this leading role in representation, e1000094. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000094 ISMB has become a major outlet for Published June 27, 2008 increasing the visibility of this extremely Copyright: ß 2008 Linial et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative dynamic new discipline, and for maintain- Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, ing and elevating its scientific standards. It provided the original author and source are credited. has become the vehicle for the education Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. of scholars at all stages of their careers, for * E-mail: [email protected] PLoS Computational Biology | www.ploscompbiol.org 1 June 2008 | Volume 4 | Issue 6 | e1000094 does not address the needs of all members criteria for a Highlights talk is that the tational biology through research, educa- of a Society rooted firmly in both cultures. designated presenter has strong present- tion, service, or a combination of the Accepting this complex challenge al- ation skills. Thus, most presenters are three. This year’s Overton prize goes to ready implies the need for at least four already well-known in the community. An Aviv Regev (Broad Institute of MIT and parallel tracks: two for presentations from important body of work is typically the Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts, proceedings (Proceedings Tracks), two for prerequisite for invitation for a Keynote United States), and the Senior Scientist presentations from high-profile work pub- Presentation by an accomplished researcher. award goes to David Haussler (University lished in refereed journals (Highlights Finally, the Special Sessions are ways to expose of California Santa Cruz and Howard Tracks). Further expansion may offer even the field to areas and novelties that are not Hughes Medical Institute, Santa Cruz, greater opportunities to include new and already integrated into the community. The California, United States). The awards will relevant areas of research into the scien- extension of what was previously a track for be presented along with the accompanying tific program. software demonstrations to a more inclusive Keynote addresses. In fact, the Senior Events in light of a scientific Technology Track now includes investigators Scientist will conclude the scientific pre- career. One way of drawing the from all scientific career stages. sentations of ISMB on the afternoon of dividing line between the multiple events Keynotes. The Keynote Presentations Wednesday, July 23. Claire M. Fraser- (Figure 1) is with respect to the stage of the (http://www.iscb.org/ismb2008/keynotes. Liggett (Institute for Genome Sciences, participant in their scientific career. php) are run in a single track with no other University of Maryland, Baltimore, Mary- Young participants (students, postdocs, competing session and typically attract land, United States will kick off the main and young faculty) typically present most participants. In Toronto we will meeting with her talk on Microbial Posters that may combine published and continue our pursuit of several missions Communities in Health and Disease. unpublished material and may represent for these talks: to make the marriage The five other Keynotes will be given by very recent work. If the work has matured between computational and experimental