16th Annual International Conference on Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology

描述（由申请人提供）：分子生物学智能系统（ISMB）会议是国际计算生物学学会（ISCB）的年度会议，ISCB是一个于1997年在美国注册成立的501(c)(3)非营利组织。2008年，ISMB将在加拿大多伦多举行会议，约有2000名与会者，其中包括高达40%的学生/博士后研究人员。作为一个多元化的多学科会议，ISMB汇集了来自不同国家的研究生、博士后研究人员、教师、研究人员和资深科学家，他们都在计算机科学、分子生物学、数学和/或统计学领域学习或工作。ISMB会议系列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”和实际生物数据的综合关注使ISMB成为一个独特且高度相关的会议，多年来举办该活动的经验使其始终组织良好，参加人数众多，备受尊敬的年度会议。每次ISMB会议的科学计划包括通过严格的同行评审程序选择的研究论文。例如，ISMB 2007提交了417篇论文，其中66篇被选中在会议上发表。每篇被接受的论文将由至少两名计划委员会成员审查，并由主题领域主席批准，以确保达到最高标准并呈现最高质量的工作。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，因此作为论文提交。ISCB的核心使命是“通过计算推进对生命系统的科学理解”。自1993年以来，ISMB会议为传播生物信息学的最新发展提供了一个年度论坛，从而成为实现学会使命的关键工具。过去的ISMB会议吸引了多达48个国家的与会者，出席人数从第一届会议的130人增加到2004年会议的2136人。自2000年以来，会议地点有目的地在北美，欧洲和非北美/非欧洲地点之间交替进行，以促进国际交流和合作。该提案旨在确保资助学生和初级研究人员参加会议，从而使他们能够迅速跟上自己领域以及可能对他们来说是新的领域的最新研究。ISMB会议展示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理解细胞如何相互作用，从而治疗癌症等疾病。此外，报告可以描述与现有生物学文献分析相关的方法和生物学进展，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会议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，而出席会议的学生和科学家将能够回到他们的实验室，在他们推进自己的研究工作的同时应用他们所学到的知识。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology (ISMB) conference is the annual meeting of the International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB), a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization incorporated in the United States in 1997. In 2008 ISMB will be held in Toronto, Canada as a conference of approximately 2000 attendees, including up to 40% students/post doctoral researchers. As a multidisciplinary conference rich in diversity, 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 and/or statistics. The ISMB meeting series bring 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 unique and highly relevant meeting, and many years of experience in producing the event has resulted in a consistently well organized, well attended, and highly respected annual conference. The scientific program for each ISMB meeting comprises research papers selected by a rigorous peer review process. As an example, for ISMB 2007 417 papers were submitted and 66 were selected for presentation at the meeting. Each accepted paper will be reviewed by at least two members of the program committee, and approved by a topic Area Chair, insuring that the highest possible standards are achieved and the highest 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. The core of ISCB's mission is, "To advance the scientific understanding of living systems through computation." The ISMB conference has provided an annual forum for disseminating the latest developments in bioinformatics since 1993, thus serving as a key vehicle for achievement of the Society's mission. Past ISMB conferences have drawn attendees from as many as 48 countries, and attendance has grown from 130 at the first meeting, to 2136 at the 2004 conference. Since 2000 the conference location has been purposefully alternated between North America, Europe, and non-North American/non-European sites to foster international exchange and collaboration. This proposal seeks to secure funding to assist students and junior researchers in attending the conference, thus enabling them to quickly come up to speed in the latest research of their own areas as well as areas that may be new to them. 1 Public Health Benefits 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. Additionally, presentations may describe methods and biological advances associated with the analysis of the existing biological literature, including benchmarking experiments, to create a better public understanding of scientific research reports. Overall, the ISMB conference serves to educate attendees on the latest developments that will further drive the research methods and results of the field of computational biology, and those students and scientists in attendance will be able to return to their labs to apply what they have learned as they advance their own research efforts.