International Society for Computational Biology

Last updated
International Society for Computational Biology
AbbreviationISCB
Formation1997 (1997)
Type Learned society
Headquarters Leesburg, Virginia, United States [1]
Membership (2016)
~3,400 [2]
President
 Thomas Lengauer
Key people
Subsidiaries ISCB Student Council
Website iscb.org

The International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB) is a scholarly society for researchers in computational biology and bioinformatics. The society was founded in 1997 to provide a stable financial home for the Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology (ISMB) conference and has grown to become a larger society working towards advancing understanding of living systems through computation and for communicating scientific advances worldwide.

Contents

In addition to ISMB, the society also organizes a growing number of smaller, more regionally or topically focused conferences and presents a number of annual scientific achievement awards, including the Overton Prize and the ISCB Senior Scientist Awards. [3] [4] [5]

Overview

ISCB organizes the Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology (ISMB) conference every year, a growing number of smaller, more regionally or topically focused annual and bi-annual conferences, and has three official journals: ISCB Community Journal, PLOS Computational Biology and Bioinformatics . The society awards three scientific achievement awards annually: the Overton Prize, the ISCB Innovator Award, [6] and the ISCB Senior Scientist Awards. The society elects ISCB Fellows annually, to honor members that have distinguished themselves through outstanding contributions to the fields of computational biology and bioinformatics. The ISCB also awards the ISCB Outstanding Contributions Award to recognize members of the community who have significantly contributed to the success of the organization.

History

Founding

The Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology (ISMB) conference series began in 1993. [7] As a response to the expansion of the conference, the ISCB was founded in 1997 with a significant part of its remit being to provide a stable financial home for ISMB. [8] [9] The ISCB was legally incorporated in early 1997, [9] with Lawrence Hunter elected as its inaugural president by the members of the founding board of directors, which included Russ Altman, Philip Bourne, David States and Alfonso Valencia. [10] The ISCB has organized the ISMB conference since 1998. [11]

During the next few years the focus remained on management of the annual ISMB conference, whose 1993 attendance of approximately 200 researchers had more than tripled by 1999.

The new millennium brought in a new president in Russ Altman, currently[ when? ] chair of Stanford University's department of bioengineering and director of the program in biomedical informatics, and over 1,200 delegates attended ISMB 2000 in San Diego. Altman took steps to formalize some of the legal and administrative aspects of ISCB before passing the torch in 2002 to Philip E. Bourne, currently[ when? ] professor in the department of pharmacology and Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of California, San Diego. Bourne gave ISCB a more permanent home at UCSD, which included the university's commitment to host the society through at least 2005 and its offer of staff support. Although Bourne served as president for only one year, he left his mark on the society by increasing the interaction with regional groups and conference organizers worldwide, and through an improved web presence. During his tenure, membership grew to more than 1,700 researchers, and the 2002 ISMB conference in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada welcomed over 1,600 attendees.

Expansion

Michael Gribskov, then at UCSD's San Diego Supercomputer department and now at the department of biological sciences at Purdue University, was elected president in 2003. That year ISMB took place in Brisbane, Australia, which was the first time the meeting was held outside North America or Europe. This phase brought many uncertainties for the society when attendance dropped to one half of budgeted expectations due to travel fears and restrictions related to outbreaks of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome or SARS, the start of the war in Iraq, and the location, which broke with the pattern of North American and European venues. Although scientifically successful, the financial losses of ISMB 2003 left ISCB financially unstable for the first time in its history.

In part to reduce ISCB's dependence on ISMB proceeds to fund the society's activities and annual overhead costs, a pilot regional conference was hosted in the US to gauge interest in smaller, localized meetings. In December 2003, the Rocky Mountain Regional Bioinformatics conference, Rocky 1, was launched in Aspen, Colorado. The meeting has been held annually ever since and now attracts attendees from around the world.

In 2005, as part of the society's discussions about the role of publications and the society's official journal, accompanied by the advent of open access publishing, the ISCB announced a partnership with the Public Library of Science and launched a new open access journal, PLoS Computational Biology. The journal is intended to emphasize computational methods applied to living systems at all scales, from molecular biology to patient populations and ecosystems, and which offer insight for experimentalists. Past president and past publications committee chair Phil Bourne served as the new publication's editor-in-chief and he remains in that role. The first issue of the new journal coincided with the opening day of ISMB 2005, held in Detroit, Michigan.

Burkhard Rost, then professor in the department of biochemistry and molecular biophysics at Columbia University and now the Alexander von Humboldt Professor and chair of bioinformatics and computational biology, computational sciences at the Technical University Munich, succeeded Michael Gribskov as president in 2007 and has been reelected twice with a current term expiration set for January 2013. Under his tenure the ISMB/ECCB 2007 conference in Vienna, Austria, chaired by Thomas Lengauer of the Max-Planck Institute for Informatics, and co-chaired by Burkhard Rost and Peter Schuster of the University of Vienna, was further expanded to include a total of eight parallel tracks, and the 2007 conference attendance of approximately 1,700 was back on track with expectations. Vienna as a destination and the Austria Center Vienna were both so well received by the conference organizers and attendees alike that it was selected to host the 2011 conference as well, which is a first for the ISMB series that had never before repeated a location.

In 2010 the first ISCB Latin America was held in Montevideo, Uruguay.

Leadership and Structure

A president, an executive committee, and a board of directors comprise ISCB's scientific leadership, drawing on distinguished, internationally renowned researchers who are elected for their term by the general society membership. The executive director leads the ISCB staff and supports a diverse set of committees dedicated to specific issues that are important to the computational biology and bioinformatics community, including education, policy, and publications.

Presidents

Board of directors

As of 2018, notable members of the board of directors include: Alex Bateman, Bonnie Berger, Terry Gaasterland, Janet Kelso, Thomas Lengauer, Yves Moreau, Christine Orengo, Burkhard Rost, Alfonso Valencia and Martin Vingron. [12]

Fellows

The ISCB has elected Fellows since 2009. These distinctions are awarded in honour of outstanding contributions to the fields of computational biology and bioinformatics. [13] The inaugural Class was given to previous recipients of the ISCB Accomplishment by a Senior Scientist Award; in following years, the ISCB has sought nominations for Fellows from its members. Fellows are traditionally introduced at the ISCB's flagship Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology conference each year. As of the Class of 2017, 64 Fellows have been elected. [14]

Communities of Special Interest (COSIs)

ISCB Communities of Special Interest (COSIs) are member communities of shared interest that have self-organized and have multiple activities or interactions throughout the year, rather than solely meeting during the SIG program of the ISMB conference. [15] An important goal of any COSI is to foster a topically-focused collaborative community wherein scientists communicate with one another on research problems and/or opportunities in specific areas of computational biology. Such communication is often in the form of meetings, but can also be through other social media tools that allow for vibrant participation in a virtual environment.

Student Council

In 2004, the ISCB Student Council was founded by Manuel Corpas to promote the development of a worldwide community for computational biology students. One of the main roles of the student council is to promote soft skills in order to develop potential in bioinformatics and computational biology trainees. As of 2017, the student council represents more than 1,000 students worldwide.[ citation needed ]

Conferences

ISCB grew out of the need for a stable organizational structure to support the planning and manage the finances of the Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology (ISMB) conference series, which had its start in 1993. ISMB is ISCB's most prominent annual activity, toward which a significant portion of resources are dedicated each year. Since 2004, when ISMB is held in Europe, it is held jointly with the European Conference on Computational Biology (ECCB).

ISCB began expanding its conference offerings with the introduction of the annual Rocky Mountain Bioinformatics Conference series in 2003, the Conference on Semantics in Healthcare and Life Sciences (CSHALS) in 2008, the bi-annual ISCB Africa ASBCB Bioinformatics Conference in 2009, and the bi-annual ISCB Latin America Conference in 2010. ISCB also hosts an annual Great Lake Bioinformatics Conference and partners with RECOMB to produce the Regulatory and Systems Genomics Conference with DREAM Challenges. The ISCB-Asia meeting was started in 2012 and continues to take shape after its last conference in 2014 in Japan in conjunction with GIW.

In addition to ISCB-organized conferences, the society supports other computational biology and bioinformatics conferences through affiliations and sponsorships. These include the annual Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing (PSB), the annual international conference on Research in Computational Molecular Biology (RECOMB), the annual International Conference on Bioinformatics (InCoB), and the annual general meeting of the European Molecular Biology Network or EMBnet.

Official journals

Affiliated organizations

The ISCB has several affiliated organizations (mainly regional), including the European Molecular Biology Network (EMBnet), the Netherlands Bioinformatics Centre (NBIC), the African Society for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology and the Japanese Society for Bioinformatics. [21]

The ISCB is also a founding member of Global Organisation for Bioinformatics Learning, Education and Training (GOBLET). In collaboration with GOBLET, the ISCB is involved in developing core competencies for different types of bioinformatics trainees; these competencies are being used in the development of new bioinformatics curricula. [22] [23] [24]

Related Research Articles

PLOS Computational Biology is a monthly peer-reviewed open access scientific journal covering computational biology. It was established in 2005 by the Public Library of Science in association with the International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB) in the same format as the previously established PLOS Biology and PLOS Medicine. The founding editor-in-chief was Philip Bourne and the current ones are Feilim Mac Gabhann and Jason Papin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology</span> Annual academic conference

Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology (ISMB) is an annual academic conference on the subjects of bioinformatics and computational biology organised by the International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB). The principal focus of the conference is on the development and application of advanced computational methods for biological problems. The conference has been held every year since 1993 and has grown to become one of the largest and most prestigious meetings in these fields, hosting over 2,000 delegates in 2004. From the first meeting, ISMB has been held in locations worldwide; since 2007, meetings have been located in Europe and North America in alternating years. Since 2004, European meetings have been held jointly with the European Conference on Computational Biology (ECCB).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eugene Myers</span> American scientist

Eugene Wimberly "Gene" Myers, Jr. is an American computer scientist and bioinformatician, who is best known for contributing to the early development of the NCBI's BLAST tool for sequence analysis.

<i>Bioinformatics</i> (journal) Academic journal

Bioinformatics is a biweekly peer-reviewed scientific journal covering research and software in bioinformatics and computational biology. It is the official journal of the International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB), together with PLOS Computational Biology. Authors can pay extra for open access and are allowed to self-archive after 1 year.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lawrence Hunter</span>

Lawrence E. Hunter is a Professor and Director of the Center for Computational Pharmacology and of the Computational Bioscience Program at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and Professor of Computer Science at the University of Colorado Boulder. He is an internationally known scholar, focused on computational biology, knowledge-driven extraction of information from the primary biomedical literature, the semantic integration of knowledge resources in molecular biology, and the use of knowledge in the analysis of high-throughput data, as well as for his foundational work in computational biology, which led to the genesis of the major professional organization in the field and two international conferences.

The ISCB Overton Prize is a computational biology prize awarded annually for outstanding accomplishment by a scientist in the early to mid stage of his or her career. Laureates have made significant contribution to the field of computational biology either through research, education, service, or a combination of the three.

The ISCB Accomplishment by a Senior Scientist Award is an annual prize awarded by the International Society for Computational Biology for contributions to the field of computational biology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Olga Troyanskaya</span> American academic

Olga G. Troyanskaya is a Professor in the Department of Computer Science and the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics at Princeton University and the Deputy Director for Genomics at the Flatiron Institute's Center for Computational Biology in NYC. She studies protein function and interactions in biological pathways by analyzing genomic data using computational tools.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">International Society for Computational Biology Student Council</span> Student section of the International Society for Computational Biology

The International Society for Computational Biology Student Council (ISCB-SC) is a dedicated section of the International Society for Computational Biology created in 2004. It is composed by students from all levels in the fields of bioinformatics and computational biology. The organisation promotes the development of the students' community worldwide by organizing different events including symposia, workshops, webinars, internship coordination and hackathons. A special focus is made on the development of soft skills in order to develop potential in bioinformatics and computational biology students around the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">European Conference on Computational Biology</span>

The European Conference on Computational Biology (ECCB) is a scientific meeting on the subjects of bioinformatics and computational biology. It covers a wide spectrum of disciplines, including bioinformatics, computational biology, genomics, computational structural biology, and systems biology. ECCB is organized annually in different European cities. Since 2007, the conference has been held jointly with Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology (ISMB) every second year. The conference also hosts the European ISCB Student Council Symposium. The proceedings of the conference are published by the journal Bioinformatics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Burkhard Rost</span> German computational biology researcher

Burkhard Rost is a scientist leading the Department for Computational Biology & Bioinformatics at the Faculty of Informatics of the Technical University of Munich (TUM). Rost chairs the Study Section Bioinformatics Munich involving the TUM and the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU) in Munich. From 2007-2014 Rost was President of the International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alfonso Valencia</span>

Alfonso Valencia is a Spanish biologist, ICREA Professor, current director of the Life Sciences department at Barcelona Supercomputing Center. and of Spanish National Bioinformatics Institute (INB-ISCIII). From 2015-2018, he was President of the International Society for Computational Biology. His research is focused on the study of biomedical systems with computational biology and bioinformatics approaches.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gary Stormo</span> American geneticist (born 1950)

Gary Stormo is an American geneticist and currently Joseph Erlanger Professor in the Department of Genetics and the Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology at Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis. He is considered one of the pioneers of bioinformatics and genomics. His research combines experimental and computational approaches in order to identify and predict regulatory sequences in DNA and RNA, and their contributions to the regulatory networks that control gene expression.

The ISCB Innovator Award is a computational biology prize awarded annually to leading scientists who are within two decades post-degree, who consistently make outstanding contributions to the field, and who continue to forge new directions. The prize was established by the International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB) in 2016 and is awarded at the Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology (ISMB) conference. The inaugural recipient was Serafim Batzoglou.

ISCB Fellowship is an award granted to scientists that the International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB) judges to have made “outstanding contributions to the fields of computational biology and bioinformatics”. As of 2019, there are 76 Fellows of the ISCB including Michael Ashburner, Alex Bateman, Bonnie Berger, Steven E. Brenner, Janet Kelso, Daphne Koller, Michael Levitt, Sarah Teichmann and Shoshana Wodak. See List of Fellows of the International Society for Computational Biology for a comprehensive listing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christoph Bock</span> German bioinformatician and principal investigator

Christoph Bock is a German bioinformatician and principal investigator at the Research Center for Molecular Medicine (CeMM) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and a visiting professor at the Medical University of Vienna.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christophe Dessimoz</span>

Christophe Dessimoz is a Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) Professor at the University of Lausanne, Associate Professor at University College London and a group leader at the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics. He was awarded the Overton Prize in 2019 for his contributions to computational biology. Starting in April 2022, he will be joint executive director of the SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, along with Ron Appel.

Laxmi Parida is an IBM Master Inventor and group leader in computational genomics at the Thomas J. Watson Research Center and Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences in New York.

References

  1. ↑ "Contact Us". iscb.org. Retrieved 11 August 2016.
  2. ↑ "ISCB Membership". iscb.org. Retrieved 11 August 2016.
  3. ↑ Fogg, Christiana N.; Kovats, Diane E. (2014). "International Society for Computational Biology Honors Dana Pe'er with Top Bioinformatics/Computational Biology Award for 2014". PLOS Computational Biology. 10 (6): e1003682. Bibcode:2014PLSCB..10E3682F. doi: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1003682 . PMC   4063598 . PMID   24945496.
  4. ↑ Fogg, C. N.; Kovats, D. E. (2014). "2014 ISCB Accomplishment by a Senior Scientist Award: Gene Myers". PLOS Computational Biology. 10 (5): e1003621. Bibcode:2014PLSCB..10E3621F. doi: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1003621 . PMC   4031058 . PMID   24853264.
  5. ↑ Accomplishment by a Senior Scientist Award
  6. ↑ "ISCB Innovator Award". iscb.org. Retrieved 2 February 2017.
  7. ↑ "About ISMB". iscb.org. Retrieved 27 October 2017.
  8. 1 2 3 Hunter, Lawrence; Altman, Russ B.; Bourne, Philip E. (2007). "The International Society for Computational Biology 10th Anniversary". PLOS Computational Biology. 3 (6): e135. Bibcode:2007PLSCB...3..135H. doi: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.0030135 . PMC   1904389 .
  9. 1 2 3 4 5 "History of ISCB". iscb.org. Retrieved 27 October 2017.
  10. ↑ "Past Officers and Directors". iscb.org. Retrieved 27 October 2017.
  11. ↑ Linial, Michal; Mesirov, Jill P.; Morrison McKay, B. J.; Rost, Burkhard (27 June 2008). "ISMB 2008 Toronto" (PDF). PLOS Computational Biology. 4 (6): e1000094. Bibcode:2008PLSCB...4E0094L. doi: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000094 . PMC   2427177 . PMID   18584023.
  12. ↑ "Officers and Directors". www.iscb.org. Retrieved 25 October 2017.
  13. ↑ "ISCB Fellows". Archived from the original on 20 March 2017. Retrieved 10 March 2016.
  14. ↑ "February 13, 2017: The International Society for Computational Biology Names Seven Members as the ISCB Fellows Class of 2017". www.iscb.org. Retrieved 13 February 2017.
  15. ↑ "COSIs" . Retrieved 15 February 2017.
  16. ↑ Brunak, S.; Krogh, A. (1 June 2001). "ISMB 2001". Bioinformatics. 17 (Suppl 1): S1–S4. doi: 10.1093/bioinformatics/17.suppl_1.S1 .
  17. ↑ "ISMB Proceedings". www.iscb.org. Retrieved 30 October 2017.
  18. ↑ "Bioinformatics". www.iscb.org. Retrieved 30 October 2017.
  19. ↑ "F1000Research to publish the ISCB Community Journal". 30 April 2015. Retrieved 30 April 2015.
  20. ↑ "ISCB/F1000 Press Release" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 30 April 2015.
  21. ↑ "Affiliates & COSIs". www.iscb.org. Retrieved 29 August 2016.
  22. ↑ Attwood, Teresa K.; Black, Pamela; Blatter, Marie-Claude; Brooksbank, Cath; Fernandes, Pedro; Mulder, Nicola; Palagi, Patricia M.; Rustici, Gabriella; Schneider, Maria Victoria; van Gelder, Celia W.G. (2016). "GOBLET's bioinformatics learning, education and training activities [v1; not peer reviewed]". F1000Research. 5(ISCB Comm J): 1944 (poster). doi: 10.7490/f1000research.1112737.1 . Retrieved 25 August 2016.
  23. ↑ Welch, Lonnie; Lewitter, Fran; Schwartz, Russell; Brooksbank, Cath; Radivojac, Predrag; Gaeta, Bruno; Schneider, Maria Victoria (6 March 2014). "Bioinformatics Curriculum Guidelines: Toward a Definition of Core Competencies". PLOS Computational Biology. 10 (3): e1003496. Bibcode:2014PLSCB..10E3496W. doi: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1003496 . PMC   3945096 . PMID   24603430.
  24. ↑ Schiffthaler, Bastian; Kostadima, Myrto; Delhomme, Nicolas; Rustici, Gabriella; Ouellette, Francis (16 June 2016). "Training in High-Throughput Sequencing: Common Guidelines to Enable Material Sharing, Dissemination, and Reusability". PLOS Computational Biology. 12 (6): e1004937. Bibcode:2016PLSCB..12E4937S. doi: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1004937 . PMC   4910983 . PMID   27309738.
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