ISMB 2012 Conference Support for Students & Young Scientists

2012年分子生物学智能系统（Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology， ISMB）学术会议将在美国加州长滩召开，预计参会人数1500 - 1700人，其中学生/博士后研究人员占33-38%。ISMB汇集了许多不同国籍的研究生，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，数学或统计学方面学习或工作。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，而不是简单的理论计算。对“智能系统”和实际生物数据的综合关注使ISMB成为一个高度相关的会议，多年来的活动已经形成了一个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取得的最新研究方法和成果，包括基因组测序方面的进展，这些进展可能有助于更好地了解细胞如何相互作用，从而治疗癌症等疾病。报告可以描述与现有生物学文献分析相关的方法和进展，包括基准实验，以使公众更好地理解科学研究报告。总体而言，ISMB旨在教育与会者了解将进一步推动计算生物学领域的研究方法和成果的最新发展。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工作或开始调查他们因参加ISMB而接触到的新领域时，对他们所学到的东西感到高兴。每次ISMB会议的科学计划包括原创研究论文的平行展示轨道，最近发表的论文的亮点，关注新兴主题的特别会议，技术演示，最新突破性研究和海报展示，科学艺术展览，辅导讲习班，特别兴趣小组会议和由学生组织的学生研讨会。2011年ISMB共提交了258篇原创研究论文，其中48篇入选论文集轨道，同时提交了88篇先前发表的论文，38篇入选亮点轨道。在2011年的会议期间，总共有超过225场演讲，预计2012年也会有类似的数字。在所有情况下，提交的材料都经过严格审查，通常由每个项目委员会的三名成员进行审查，然后由项目主席批准，以确保提交的作品尽可能达到最高质量。会议中所代表的具体领域每年都有所不同，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。该提案寻求资助，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领域的最新研究，以及可能对他们来说是新的领域。

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.