Diane E. Kovats

Message from the ISCB: ISCB Ebola award for important future research on the computational biology of Ebola virus.

UNLABELLED Speed is of the essence in combating Ebola; thus, computational approaches should form a significant component of Ebola research. As for the development of any modern drug, computational biology is uniquely positioned to contribute through comparative analysis of the genome sequences of Ebola strains and three-dimensional protein modeling. Other computational approaches to Ebola may include large-scale docking studies of Ebola proteins with human proteins and with small-molecule libraries, computational modeling of the spread of the virus, computational mining of the Ebola literature and creation of a curated Ebola database. Taken together, such computational efforts could significantly accelerate traditional scientific approaches. In recognition of the need for important and immediate solutions from the field of computational biology against Ebola, the International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB) announces a prize for an important computational advance in fighting the Ebola virus. ISCB will confer the ISCB Fight against Ebola Award, along with a prize of US

2018 outstanding contributions to ISCB award: Russ Altman

2000, at its July 2016 annual meeting (ISCB Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology 2016, Orlando, FL). CONTACT dkovats@iscb.org or rost@in.tum.de.

2018 ISCB Innovator Award recognizes M. Madan Babu

The Outstanding Contributions to ISCB Award was introduced in 2015 to recognize Society members who have made lasting and beneficial contributions through their leadership, service, and educational work, or a combination of these areas. Russ Altman (Image 1), Kenneth Fong Professor and Professor of Bioengineering, of Genetics, of Medicine (General Medicine Discipline), of Biomedical Data Science, and, by courtesy, of Computer Science, is the 2018 winner of the Outstanding Contributions to ISCB Award and will be recognized at the 2018 Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology (ISMB) meeting in Chicago, Illinois, being held on July 6–10, 2018. Altman’s years of dedicated service to ISCB began when he attended the very first ISMB meeting in 1993. As a brand new faculty member, he remembered how he felt at home at ISMB, surrounded by a community of scientists also interested in computational biology and bioinformatics. Altman’s enthusiasm at this first ISMB meeting led him to help organize the next ISMB meeting. He recalled, “It became clear that there was no obvious ‘host’ for ISMB 1994, so I volunteered to host it at Stanford, where we had a lovely meeting with a couple of hundred people. We had some extra money after paying our bills, so we wanted to send the money to wherever ISMB 1995 was going to be (UK). For the first few years, this is how ISMB worked—the organizers from one year would send the leftover funds as a seed for the next ISMB. There was no organization, and as the size of the leftover check increased, we started getting nervous and realized we needed to create a legal entity.” ISCB was born at ISMB 1997 in Halkidiki, Greece, where organizers of former ISMB meetings and others sat at dinner on the beach and planned the society and figured out how to incorporate it. Altman has warm recollections of that historic gathering and said, “There are pictures of that great dinner and group, and I treasure the memory of that meeting”. Altman has enjoyed serving ISCB at all levels since its inception, from work on the Publications Committee and as a conference organizer to his tenure on the ISCB Board of Directors (1997–2005) and as ISCB President (2002–2005). Altman’s early work on the Publications

2018 ISCB accomplishments by a senior scientist award

The International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB) Innovator Award recognizes an ISCB scientist who is within two decades of having completed his or her graduate degree and has consistently made outstanding contributions to the field of computational biology. The 2018 winner is Dr. M. Madan Babu, Program Leader at the Medical Research Council (MRC) Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, United Kingdom. Madan will receive his award and deliver a keynote presentation at the 2018 International Conference on Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology in Chicago, Illinois, being held on July 6–10, 2018.

Art in Science Competition invites artworks to the annual exhibition on ISMB 2018 in Chicago

Each year, the International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB) recognizes a leader in the fields computational biology and bioinformatics with the Accomplishments by a Senior Scientist Award. This is the highest award bestowed by ISCB in recognition of a scientist’s significant research, education, and service contributions. Ruth Nussinov, Senior Principal Scientist and Principal Investigator at the National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health and Professor Emeritus in the Department of Human Molecular Genetics & Biochemistry, School of Medicine at Tel Aviv University, Israel, is being honored as the 2018 winner of the Accomplishment by a Senior Scientist Award. She will receive her award and present a keynote address at ISCB’s premiere annual meeting, the 2018 Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology (ISMB) conference in Chicago, Illinois, being held on July 6–10, 2018.

2018 ISCB Overton Prize awarded to Cole Trapnell

The International Society of Computational Biology and Bioinformatics (ISCB) brings together scientists from a wide range of disciplines, including biology, medicine, computer science, mathematics and statistics. Practitioners in these fields are constantly dealing with information in visual form: from microscope images and photographs of gels to scatter plots, network graphs and phylogenetic trees, structural formulae and protein models to flow diagrams, visual aids for problem-solving are omnipresent. The ISCB Art in Science Competition 2017 at the ISCB/ECCB 2017 conference in Prague offered a way to show the beauty of science in art form. Past artworks in this annual exhibition at ISMB combined outstanding beauty and aesthetics with deep insight that perfectly validated the exhibit’s approach or went beyond the problems solution. Others were surprising and inspiring through the transition from science to art, opening eyes and minds to reflect on the work being undertaken.

2017 ISCB Accomplishment by a Senior Scientist Award given to Pavel Pevzner

Each year the International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB) recognizes the achievements of an early to mid-career scientist with the Overton Prize. This prize honors the untimely death of Dr. G. Christian Overton, a respected computational biologist and founding ISCB Board member. The Overton Prize recognizes independent investigators who are in the early to middle phases of their careers and are selected because of their significant contributions to computational biology through research, teaching, and service. ISCB is pleased to recognize Dr. Cole Trapnell, Assistant Professor of Genome Sciences at the University of Washington as the 2018 winner of the Overton Prize. Trapnell will be presenting a keynote presentation at the 2018 International Conference on Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology in Chicago, Illinois being held from July 6 to 10, 2018.

2017 ISCB Overton Prize awarded to Christoph Bock

The International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB) recognizes an established scientist each year with the Accomplishment by a Senior Scientist Award for significant contributions he or she has made to the field. This award honors scientists who have contributed to the advancement of computational biology and bioinformatics through their research, service, and education work. Pavel Pevzner, PhD, Ronald R. Taylor Professor of Computer Science and Director of the NIH Center for Computational Mass Spectrometry at University of California, San Diego, has been selected as the winner of the 2017 Accomplishment by a Senior Scientist Award. The ISCB awards committee, chaired by Dr. Bonnie Berger of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, selected Pevzner as the 2017 winner. Pevzner will receive his award and deliver a keynote address at the 2017 Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology-European Conference on Computational Biology joint meeting (ISMB/ECCB 2017) held in Prague, Czech Republic, from July 21–25, 2017. ISMB/ECCB is a biennial joint meeting that brings together leading scientists in computational biology and bioinformatics from around the globe.

2017 Outstanding Contributions to ISCB Award: Fran Lewitter

The International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB) each year recognizes the achievements of an earlyto mid-career scientist with the Overton Prize. This prize honors the untimely death of Dr. G. Christian Overton, an admired computational biologist and founding ISCB board member. Winners of the Overton Prize are independent investigators who are in the early to middle phases of their careers and are selected because of their significant contributions to computational biology through research, teaching, and service. ISCB is pleased to recognize Dr. Christoph Bock, principal investigator (PI) at the CeMM Research Center for Molecular Medicine of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, Austria, as the 2017 winner of the Overton Prize. Bock will be presenting a keynote presentation at the 2017 International Conference on Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology/European Conference on Computational Biology (ISMB/ECCB) in Prague, Czech Republic, which will be held July 21–25, 2017.

2017 ISCB Overton Prize: Christoph Bock

The Outstanding Contributions to the International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB) Award was launched in 2015 to recognize individuals who have made lasting and valuable contributions to the Society through their leadership, service, and educational work, or a combination of these areas. Fran Lewitter is the 2017 winner of the Outstanding Contributions to ISCB Award and will be recognized at the 2017 Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology (ISMB)/European Conference on Computational Biology, meeting in Prague, Czech Republic being held from July 21-25, 2017.