NSF Student Travel Grant for 2018 Computational Modeling in Biology Network (COMBINE) Forum

数据交换标准对任何领域的发展都至关重要。它们使研究人员和从业者能够可靠地交换信息，应用各种工具来解决他们的问题，并复制科学结果。生物网络中的计算建模(COMBINE)创建于2010年，旨在组织系统生物学的标准化工作。除其他外，这项工作包括用于由系统生物学家创建的数学模型的系统生物学标记语言(SBML)；以及用于描述由合成生物学家创建的基因设计的合成生物学开放语言(SBOL)。虽然系统生物学和合成生物学有许多独特的要求，但也有许多重叠的特征，如需要构建数学模型，描述途径，并提供可视化表示。联合会议将两个领域的代表聚集在一起，使这些社区能够共享现有的标准、软件和其他基础设施。该项目将帮助来自这两个社区的美国学生，特别是那些新加入这些努力或来自代表不足的群体的学生，在10月8日至12日在马萨诸塞州波士顿波士顿大学举行的2018年联合论坛上相遇(http://co.mbine.org/events/COMBINE_2018).像这样的研讨会有助于在制定这些标准方面取得进展。目前，大多数标准化工作要么没有资金，要么只得到了非常有限的支持。事实上，这些标准的成功归功于许多人捐赠时间参与讨论、编写规范、担任标准编辑和参加研讨会。这些致力于制定这些标准的人中，有许多是居住在美国的学生，否则他们很难找到资金参加这次会议。因此，该项目将帮助这些致力于这些标准的美国学生支付前往波士顿参加Combine 2018年的旅费。这不仅对这些学生来说是一次宝贵的经历，而且还将极大地增强合成生物学社区的目标，即将合成生物学的研究人员与那些从事系统生物学工作的人聚集在一起，从而实现集成标准和共享软件和基础设施。这次研讨会的目标是继续(1)发展系统和合成生物学研究人员之间的协同关系；(2)为系统和合成生物学提供更紧密的标准开发；(3)向模型师和实验者进行宣传；以及(4)讨论协调努力，倡导在出版物和档案数据库中使用标准，以提高科学结果的重现性。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Standards for data exchange are critical to the development of any field. They enable researchers and practitioners to exchange information reliably, apply a variety of tools to their problems, and reproduce scientific results. The COmputational MOdeling in Biology NEtwork (COMBINE) was created in 2010 to organize standardization efforts for systems biology. This effort includes, among others, the systems biology markup language (SBML) for mathematical models created by systems biologists; and the synthetic biology open language (SBOL) for describing genetic designs created by synthetic biologists. While systems biology and synthetic biology have many unique requirements, there are also a lot of overlapping features such as the need to construct mathematical models, describe pathways, and provide visual representations. The COMBINE meetings bring together representatives from both fields to enable these communities to share existing standards, software, and other infrastructure. This project will help enable US-based students from these two communities, particularly those new to these efforts or from underrepresented groups, to meet together at the 2018 COMBINE Forum to be held at Boston University in Boston, Massachusetts on October 8th to 12th (http://co.mbine.org/events/COMBINE_2018). Workshops like this one are instrumental in making progress in the development of these standards. Currently, most standardization efforts are either unfunded or only have very limited support. Indeed, the success of these standards has been due to the donation of time from many individuals to participate in discussions, write specifications, serve as standard editors, and attend workshops. Many of these individuals working on the development of these standards are students based in the US who would otherwise find it difficult to find the funds to attend this meeting. Therefore, this project would help support travel expenses for these US-based students working on these standards to travel to Boston for COMBINE 2018. Not only would this be a valuable experience for these students, but it would also greatly enhance the synthetic biology community's goal of bringing together researchers in synthetic biology with those working in systems biology leading to integrated standards and shared software and infrastructure. The goals of this workshop will be to continue to (1) develop synergistic relationships between systems and synthetic biology researchers; (2) provide a tighter integration of standard development for systems and synthetic biology; (3) perform outreach to modelers and experimentalists; and (4) discuss a coordinated effort to advocate the use of standards in publications and archival databases to enhance reproducibility of scientific results.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.