ISMB 2012 Conference Support for Students & Young Scientists

描述(申请人提供)：2012年智能系统分子生物学(ISMB)会议将在加利福尼亚州长滩举行，将有1,500-1,700名与会者，其中33-38%的学生/博士后研究人员。ISMB汇集了来自不同国家的研究生、博士后研究人员、教师、研究人员和高级科学家，他们都在计算机科学、分子生物学、数学或统计学领域学习或工作。这次会议将生物学家和计算科学家聚集在一起，专注于以实际生物学问题为中心的研究，而不仅仅是理论计算。对“智能系统”和实际生物数据的共同关注使ISMB成为一个高度相关的会议，多年来制作该活动的结果是举办了一次专业组织和受人尊敬的年度会议。ISMB会议介绍了通过将计算机编程应用于生物科学研究而开发的最新研究方法和结果，包括基因组测序方面的进展，这些进展可能有助于更好地理解细胞如何相互作用以治疗癌症等疾病。演讲可以描述与分析现有生物学文献相关的方法和进展，包括基准实验，以使公众更好地理解科学研究报告。总的来说，ISMB的作用是教育与会者了解最新的发展，这些发展将进一步推动计算生物学领域的研究方法和结果。学生和科学家能够回到他们的实验室，在他们推进自己的研究努力或开始调查他们因参加ISMB而接触到的新领域时，应用他们所学到的东西。每次ISMB会议的科学计划包括原始研究论文的平行演示轨道、最近发表的论文的亮点、专注于新兴主题的特别会议、技术演示、最新研究和海报演示、科学中的艺术展览、辅导工作坊、特殊兴趣小组会议和由学生组织的学生研讨会。ISMB 2011年提交了258篇原创研究论文，其中48篇入选《议事程序》，88篇以前发表的论文，38篇入选《要点》。在2011年会议期间，总共介绍了225多次会谈，预计2012年也会有类似的数字。在所有情况下，提交的作品都会经过严格的审查，通常是由每个赛道委员会的三名成员审查，然后再由赛道主席批准，以确保提交尽可能高的工作质量。会议代表的具体领域每年都会有所不同，这取决于研究人员认为最有趣和最具创新性的领域，因此以论文和提案的形式提交。这项建议寻求资金，以帮助学生和初级研究人员参加会议，从而使他们接触到自己所在领域的最新研究以及对他们来说可能是新的领域。 公共卫生相关性：生物信息学被公认为是理解生物系统的基本工具，这在很大程度上是由基因组序列工作推动的，因为基因组数据在寻求开发新的和改进的疾病治疗方法和预防疾病方面的有用性高度依赖于一个人以电子方式获取和操纵它的能力。分子生物学智能系统(ISMB)系列会议直接解决了这些问题，展示了该领域的最新进展，并揭示了未来发现的前景，但与计算生物学或人工智能中的许多其他活动不同的是，会议坚持研究人员使用真实的分子生物学数据，而不是理论或玩具样本。尽管计算机科学和生物学的文化截然不同，但ISMB通过在生物学会议之间提供一个论坛，在技术进步发生时展示技术进步，从而弥合了这种文化鸿沟，否则，在确切的实验结果公布之前，技术进步可能会被回避。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The 2012 Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology (ISMB) conference in will be held in Long Beach, California, with 1,500-1,700 attendees, including 33-38% students/post doctoral researchers. ISMB brings together graduate students, post doctoral researchers, faculty, research staff and senior scientists of many different nationalities, all of whom are studying or working in computer science, molecular biology, mathematics or statistics. The conference brings biologists and computational scientists together to focus on research centered on actual biological problems rather than simply theoretical calculations. The combined focus on "intelligent systems" and actual biological data makes ISMB a highly relevant meeting, and many years of producing the event has resulted in a professionally organized and respected annual conference. The ISMB conference presents the latest research methods and results developed through the application of computer programming to the study of biological sciences, including advances in sequencing genomes that may lead to a better understanding of how, for instance, cells interact for the treatment of diseases such as cancer. Presentations may describe methods and advances associated with the analysis of existing biological literature, including benchmarking experiments, to create a better public understanding of scientific research reports. Overall, ISMB serves to educate attendees on the latest developments that will further drive the research methods and results of the field of computational biology. Students and scientists are able to return to their labs to appy what they have learned as they advance their own research efforts or begin investigating new areas they were exposed to as a result of attending ISMB. The scientific program for each ISMB meeting includes parallel presentation tracks of original research papers, highlights of recently published papers, special sessions focused on emerging topics, technology demos, late breaking research and poster presentations, an art in science exhibition, tutorial workshops, special interest group meetings and a student symposium organized by and for students. For ISMB 2011, 258 original research papers were submitted and 48 selected for the Proceedings Track, while 88 previously published papers were submitted and 38 selected for the Highlights Track. In all, over 225 talks were presented during the course of the 2011 conference, and similar numbers are anticipated for 2012. In all cases, submissions are rigorously reviewed, typically by three members of each track's committee before approval by the track chair, insuring the highest possible quality of work is presented. The specific areas represented in the conference vary each year depending on the areas that researchers find most interesting and innovative, and therefore submit as papers and proposals. This proposal seeks funding to assist students and junior researchers in attending the conference, thus exposing them to the latest research of their own areas as well as areas that may be new to them. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Bioinformatics is well established as an essential tool for understanding biological systems, largely driven by genomic sequence efforts due to the usefulness of genomic data in the quest to develop new and improved treatments for and prevention of disease is highly dependent on one's ability to electronically access and manipulate it. The Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology (ISMB) conference series directly addresses these questions by showcasing the latest advances in the field and exposing what's on the horizon of future discoveries, but is distinguished from many other events in computational biology or artificial intelligence by an insistence that the researchers work with real molecular biology data, not theoretical or toy examples. Although the cultures of computer science and biology are so disparate, ISMB bridges this cultural gap by providing a forum among biological conferences that features technical advances as they occur, which otherwise may be shunned until a firm experimental result is published.