EXCELLENCE IN SCIENCE AWARD - 2017 Season ~ CALL FOR NOMINATIONS ~

FASEB is seeking nominations for its 2017 Excellence in Science Award that recognizes the significant accomplishments of women scientists. We look forward to another list of nominees that reads like a ‘Who's Who’ of international science, containing the names of outstanding women in science who have accomplished scientific work of lasting impact and have contributed substantially to training the next generation of scientists.

 
The Excellence in Science Award recognizes outstanding achievement by women in biological science.  All women who are members of one or more of FASEB Member Societies will be eligible for nomination. Nominations recognize a woman whose career achievements have contributed significantly to further our understanding of a particular discipline by excellence in research.
 
Nominees will be evaluated on the following criteria:
Scientific achievements including landmark discoveries, high impact publications, and scientific leadership
Training of students and postdoctoral fellows including impact on careers and teaching efforts
Contributions to the broader scientific community, such as leadership in professional organizations, university service and leadership, and public outreach
NOMINATION PACKAGES SHOULD ADDRESS THESE CRITERIA.
 
Nomination Procedures:
Nominators and their candidates must be members of at least one FASEB Member Society but do not have to be members of the same society. Self-nominations will not be accepted.  All nominations must be submitted on the FASEB nomination form (available on the FASEB website).  Access to the site will be available as of January 1, 2016.
 
Submissions must include all of the following documents that are to be uploaded individually in PDF format.
Nomination letter, setting forth in detail:
-  Contributions to the field that represent the nominee's outstanding achievement in science
-  Evidence of leadership
-  Evidence of mentorship
-  Evidence of national recognition
-  Honors and awards
-  Synopsis of selected bibliography
-  Complete curriculum vitae documenting:
-  All publications
-  Leadership roles
-  Mentorship
-  Teaching
-  Honors and recognition
-  Grant awards

Five nominee reprints demonstrating most significant contributions
Three letters of support from the nominee's peers illustrating impact on the field
Three letters of recommendation from trainees illustrating mentorship and impact on careers
 
These nomination instructions also appear on the FASEB website.  Follow this link:
FASEB Excellence in Science Award
 
Nominations must be submitted on the FASEB nomination form (available on the FASEB website) by Midnight (EST) on March 1, 2016.
 
PAPER SUBMISSIONS WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED

URL: http://www.faseb.org/About-FASEB/Awards/Excellence-in-Science-Award.aspx
Contact Person: Linda Stricker  (lstricker@faseb.org)

NC3Rs £20k Prize for Best Paper with 3Rs Impact

The National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research (NC3Rs) is seeking nominations for its 2015 competition of the 3Rs Prize.

The deadline for applications is this week at 4 pm (GMT), Thursday 19 November 2015.

The prize of up to £20k is awarded to the author(s) of a paper which has made an exceptional contribution towards scientific and technological advances in the 3Rs, in medical, biological or veterinary sciences.

The prize is open to researchers from academia and industry internationally. Further details of the prize and the nomination process can be found at www.nc3rs.org.uk/3rsprize, or by emailing 3rsprize@nc3rs.org.uk

URL: http://www.nc3rs.org.uk/3rsprize

Contact Person: Kasia Makowska (katarzyna.makowska@nc3rs.org.uk)

Participation Requested: FASEB Survey to Collect Perspectives on Data Access Issues

Federal agencies will be issuing new and modifying existing data access policies over the next few years; an overview of these changes was presented on recent Board and Science Policy Committee conference calls. At the request of the FASEB Board, we have developed a survey to gather the many different perspectives of FASEB societies on data maintenance and sharing. This will enable us to promptly and thoughtfully respond to agency actions. Please complete the 15 minute survey linked to below by November 24th.

FASEB Survey on Data Access Issues: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/DataAccessPolicies (a pdf copy of the survey question is attached for your reference)

Survey Period: October 13th though November 24th, 2015

Background information: The 2013 Office of Science and Technology memorandum on public access to research results requires federal agencies to create and expand requirements for sharing digital data produced as part of federally funded research. At a minimum, agencies will require that a data management plan (DMP) be included in all research grant applications. Additional information about the memorandum and select agency plans can be found in the attached document.

Survey results will be compiled by FASEB staff and presented to the FASEB Data Science and Informatics Subcommittee. They will inform FASEB comments on issued or proposed agency policies and may also be used for the development of a broad position statement.

If you have any questions or comments about the survey, please contact Bethany Drehman at bdrehman@faseb.org.

Best Regards,
Parker Antin, PhD
FASEB President
URL: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/DataAccessPolicies

Contact Person: Bethany Drehman (bdrehman@faseb.org)

Funding Opportunities now available for the NIH Common Fund Molecular Transducers of Physical Activity in Humans Program

The new Common Fund Program Molecular Transducers of Physical Activity in Humans has two overarching goals: 1) to assemble a comprehensive map of the molecular changes that occur in response to physical activity and 2) to develop a user-friendly database that any researcher can access to develop hypotheses regarding the mechanisms whereby physical activity improves or preserves health.

The program will be funded via a series of cooperative agreements as a consortium.  The NIH is now inviting applications for the following components.

• Molecular Transducers of Physical Activity Consortium Coordinating Center (CCC) (U24) (RFA-RM-15-014)
  A Consortium Coordinating Center to oversee the entire project, including the development of consortium protocols by the MoTrPAC Steering Committee, the conduct of the clinical study, and the biospecimen distribution, storage, and analysis.


• Molecular Transducers of Physical Activity Bioinformatics Center (U24) (RFA-RM-15-012)
  A Bioinformatics Center to develop a multidimensional data resource that is capable of receiving the range of datasets from the Chemical Analysis Sites and distributing them to the broad scientific community in formats that investigators can use to develop and test hypotheses about the mechanisms by which physical activity improves health.


• Molecular Transducers of Physical Activity Clinical Centers (U01) (RFA-RM-15-015)
  Clinical Centers to implement a physical activity protocol and collect appropriate data and biospecimens.


• Molecular Transducers of Physical Activity Metabolomics and Proteomics Chemical Analysis Sites (U24) (RFA-RM-15-011)
  Molecular Transducers of Physical Activity Genomics, Epigenomics and Transcriptomics Chemical Analysis Sites (U24) (RFA-RM-15-010)
  Chemical Analysis Sites to characterize human and animal samples using proteomic, metabolomic, genomic, epigenomic, and transcriptional profiling approaches and to perform initial analyses of datasets.


• Molecular Transducers of Physical Activity Preclinical Animal Study Sites (U01) (RFA-RM-15-013)
  Preclinical Animal Study Sites to provide tissues that cannot be obtained from human participants and to explore the functions, sources, and target tissues of molecules that are affected by physical activity and thought to be relevant to human health.

For more information, please see the funding opportunity announcements in the NIH Guide for Grants and Contracts. NIH also will be hosting a webinar to answer questions from prospective applicants on October 22, 2015, beginning at 2 PM Eastern Daylight Savings Time. For additional information, please visit http://commonfund.nih.gov/MolecularTransducers.  

The NIH Common Fund supports goal-driven, research networks in which investigators generate data, solve technological problems, and/or otherwise pilot resources and tools that will be stimulatory to the broader research community. Common Fund programs are designed to achieve their goals within a maximum of 10 years. More information about the programs currently supported by the Common Fund can be found at www.commonfund.nih.gov.

Contact Person: Aron  Marquitz (aron.marquitz@nih.gov)

Call for ISCB FASEB Editorial Board Representative – FASEB Journal

ISCB is seeking scholars interested in serving as the ISCB representative to the FASEB Editorial Board for the FASEB Journal (FJ). If you are interested, please submit the following information using our online system. If you have a colleague who may enjoy serving in this position for ISCB, please feel free to forward this information.

FASEB counts on these Society representatives to provide opinions to the Editors, review papers, suggest other reviewers as appropriate, and invite them to submit content to the Journal. The level of activity varies depending on the scientific area of submissions, but FJ has over 50 Editorial Board members (including the Society representatives) that collectively handle about 680 submissions per year after an initial query stage.

Editorial Board members are also invited to an annual FASEB Journal face-to-face meeting to discuss content, submissions, the peer-review process, misconduct, etc. The 2016 meeting will be March 22 in Crystal City, USA.

Applicants must be a member of ISCB and have a doctorate (or an equivalent degree), and significant publishing and reviewing experience. Due to the high volume of applications, only accepted applicants will be contacted via email.

Be prepared to submit the following information:

• Your name
• Email address
• Telephone
• City, State, Country
• Name of your Institution
• Department or Division
• Website of Institution
• Your title or position
• Your highest degree (must have a doctorate degree)
• Years of editing or peer review experience (for English-language journals)
• Which journals do you currently serve (List of Journals)?
• Statement of interest that further support your nomination (cannot exceed 50 words)
• Up to one page CV

URL: https://www.iscb.org/cms_addon/journal_editor/addEditor.php

Contact Person: Diane Kovats (executive.office@iscb.org)

Bioinformatics Specialization on Coursera

The University of California, San Diego has released the Bioinformatics Specialization on Coursera (https://www.coursera.org/specialization/bioinformatics/34), a series of six courses aimed at teaching bioinformatics to a wide audience.

The six courses will culminate in a Capstone project featuring a series of challenges in biological big data that have been sponsored and partly developed by Illumina.

The Bioinformatics Specialization features two learner tracks: a "biologist track" aimed at students who have not yet learned how to program but who want to gain experience with using existing bioinformatics applications; and a "hacker track" aimed at experienced programmers who want to see how sophisticated algorithms can be applied to modern biological problems.

The print companion of the Bioinformatics Specialization is Bioinformatics Algorithms: An Active Learning Approach (http://bioinformaticsalgorithms.com), whose second edition is being released.
URL: https://www.coursera.org/specialization/bioinformatics/34

Contact Person: Phillip Compeau (pcompeau@eng.ucsd.edu)

bioCADDIE--Pilot Project Harvester

Request for Application -- bioCADDIE Pilot Project on Harvester for DDI Schema

The biomedical and healthCAre Data Discovery Index Ecosystem (bioCADDIE) consortium solicits Pilot Project proposals for developing a metadata harvester for the data discovery index (DDI). bioCADDIE is part of the National Institutes of Health's (NIH) Big Data to Knowledge (BD2K) program, and is committed to building a prototype DDI to facilitate dataset search and provide location, association, and access condition information.

The proposals are expected to demonstrate the feasibility of using embedded metadata (e.g., using microdata on html pages that follows schema.org specifications) to describe datasets residing in data repositories and data bases or described in data papers. Projects may:

* evaluate structured data schemas for embedding metadata on websites (e.g., schema.org, DCAT, etc.),
* partner with existing repositories to expose their metadata utilizing an appropriate data schema via Microdata, RDFa, JSON-LD, or other suitable micro-formats,
* explore mechanisms for extracting metadata,
* provide mechanisms for validation of dataset metadata exposed in microformats.

Applications are welcome from any organization where a subcontract to the University of California can be executed and are due by August 31, 2015 at midnight (PDT). The anticipated start date is October 1, 2015.

Go to https://biocaddie.org/participate/request-application-pilot-project-harvester?utm_source=Announcement+List&utm_campaign=b6cea3b3f4-bioCADDIE_Harvester_RFA_Aug_4_2015&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_9246735df8-b6cea3b3f4-228238241 for more information on project guidelines and the application process.
URL: https://biocaddie.org/participate/request-application-pilot-project-harvester?utm_source=Announcement+List&utm_campaign=b6cea3b3f4-bioCADDIE_Harvester_RFA_Aug_4_2015&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_9246735df8-b6cea3b3f4-228238241

Contact Person: Dr. Cleo Maehara, bioCADDIE Project Manager (ckmaehara@ucsd.edu)

ISMB/ECCB Social Event--Guiness Storehouse!

Don't miss the ISMB/ECCB 2015 Social Event on Monday, 13 July, at the famous Guinness Storehouse!

Come network, learn about the brewing of Ireland's most famous beer, and enjoy a pint of Guinness.

Tickets are still available online and onsite.
URL: https://www.iscb.org/ismbeccb2015-program/ismbeccb2015-social-events#storehouse

Contact Person: Steven Leard (steven@iscb.org)

Announcing the Opening of the DREAM ALS Stratification Prize4Life Challenge

We are pleased to announce that the DREAM ALS Stratification Prize4Life Challenge, the first of the DREAM10 Challenges is now open for participation.

This Challenge focuses on predicting the progression and survival of ALS patients. The Challenge will leverage the PRO-ACT database of more than 8,000 cases as the Challenge training set, and feature several unpublished datasets that will be used for model validation. To learn more and join this Challenge, go to: https://www.synapse.org/#!Synapse:syn2873386/wiki/

Besides joining the ALS Stratification Challenge, we hope you will also pre-register for one or both of the two other DREAM10 Challenges that are currently under preparation. In this way, we can keep you informed about the readiness of these two additional DREAM10 Challenges for participation. Also below, we've also included a current snapshot of the DREAM9.5 Challenges that opened this past winter.

To learn more about DREAM Challenges and Sage Bionetworks please go to: http://dreamchallenges.org/ and http://sagebase.org
URL: http://sagebase.us7.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b146de537186191a9d2110f3a&id=a9f2d91f3f&e=d446602705

Contact Person: Gustavo Stolovitzky (gustavo@us.ibm.com)

ISCB mourns the loss John Wooley

Dr. John Wooley shaped policy at the U.S. National Science Foundation and U.S. Department of Energy to pave the way for massive growth and transformation in the field of computational biology. He passed away in April after prolonged cancer. After decades spent launching new initiatives in computational biology that pushed forward discoveries, innovation, and national programs in genomics, protein structure, crystallography, and systems biology, Dr. Wooley served as Vice Chancellor for Research and Professor of Pharmacology at the University of California, San Diego.

"John Wooley was an inspiration to me and to our community. His vision saw the potential impact of integrating computer science and biology as we entered the 21st Century. Both fields were transforming as new technologies made possible new types of observations at massive scales. Not only did he shape the direction of the field, but he shaped individuals through his mentorship and unflagging optimism. I had great luck to benefit directly from his guidance and leadership during my early years as a post-doctoral Fellow at the Department of Energy and on through my time as a professor in the Bioinformatics & Systems Biology program at UC San Diego. John will be missed by many," said Terry Gaasterland, Director of the Scripps Genome Center at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and Professor in the Bioinformatics & Systems Biology program at UC San Diego.

"John gave me my first grant while he was at the NSF. It was the early 90's and the first grant between a biomedical researcher and a computer scientist at Columbia University. What was remarkable was that John gave us more money than we asked for. Many grants later, that has never happened to me again. That was the kind of person John was; breaking rules and tradition to do what he believed in. In that case it was to explore the use of object-oreinted database technologies for answering new types of questions of the rapidly growing corpus of macromolecular structure data. What we learnt from that grant ultimately fed into our work on the RCSB Protein Data Bank (PDB) from which many others were to make landmark discoveries in structural biology and bioinformatics. John saw that coming – that was his strength – seeing the future as if it were today. I was thrilled when John joined us at UCSD and he was instrumental, along with Palmer Taylor, in my securing a tenured professorship in the new School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences even before one brick was laid for the building to house the School. I would periodically visit John in his office and be amazed at his command of what was hot (and what was not) in the ever growing field of computational biology. He kept up this encyclopedic knowledge even as his health fluctuated. Frail on the outside there was enormous strength within; a strength which I and many others gained from. Our young field has lost a pioneer to whom we all owe a great debt," said Philip Bourne, Ph.D., FACMI, Associate Director for Data Science (ADDS) & Founding Editor in Chief of PLOS Computational Biology.
URL: http://www.iscb.org

Contact Person: Nadine Kampman Costello (ncostello@iscb.org)

ISCB Seeks Applicatoins for Editors for ISCB Community Journal

ISCB is seeking scholars interested in serving as volunteer editors for the ISCB Community Journal. If you are interested, please submit your nomination using our online system. If you have a colleague who may enjoy serving as a volunteer editor for ISCB, please feel free to forward this information.

The primary responsibility of an editor will be to oversee the content on the ISCB Community Journal homepage. Editors will work with the conferences and have the final decision on the selection of conference editors and editorial board proposed by the conferences. Editors will supervise the conference referee process and ensure the quality standards of referee reports, editorial decision and published papers. Editors will help to promote the journal and to increase the number of conferences publishing in the journal. The ISCB Community Journal editors will work closely with F1000Research to keep improving the journal and make sure it is meeting the aims and objectives of the ISCB. Editors are appointed by the ISCB Board of Directors and will serve a three-year term* with the option to be renewed for one additional term.

Applicants must be a member of ISCB and have significant publishing and reviewing experience, and experience reviewing and working with conference paper and abstract submissions. Due to the high volume of applications, only accepted applicants will be contacted via email.
URL: http://www.iscb.org/call-for-editors

Contact Person: Diane Kovats (dkovats@iscb.org)

Let your voice be heard in PLOS user studies

Influence the direction of Open Access science tools by participating in PLOS user studies.

Let your voice be heard

Test drive new concepts and help us refine our designs to make them more accessible for everyone.


Get sneak peeks of our latest tools

We\\\'re constantly building new tools for science publishing, and want to make sure that they are useful and intuitive.


It's easy and fun to participate

We can conduct our short studies in-person at your office or at PLOS headquarters, or remotely using simple user study applications.


Simply take our short survey — we'll keep you in the loop about user study opportunities.

To participate in the survey go to http://us9.campaign-archive2.com/?u=69b1f7f753d370193336032d6&id=a1c361032c&e=07d2cafaa8

URL: http://us9.campaign-archive2.com/?u=69b1f7f753d370193336032d6&id=a1c361032c&e=07d2cafaa8

Contact Person: info@iscb.org (info@iscb.org)

BioJS CONFERENCE 3-4 JULY, NORWICH, UK

BioJS CONFERENCE 3-4 JULY, NORWICH, UK
http://conf.biojs.net/

Are you
- a researcher interested in interactive visualization of massive biological datasets on the web?
- a developer interested in data visualization?
- interested to understand current industry-based end user needs?

Would you like to meet recognized leaders in the field of visualization in bioinformatics, including representatives from a variety of SMEs, big pharma and for profit organizations?

It is our pleasure to invite you to join us for the 1st Annual BioJS Conference (BioJS.conf) and hackathon on 3-4 July 2015, hosted at The Genome Analysis Centre (TGAC), Norwich, UK. As part of the conference we will have an industry-led session organized by the Repositive.io SME. The aim of this session is to understand the needs, wants, and limitations of front-end interfaces applied to industry-based end users.

Current confirmed speakers include:

Suzi Lewis (Berkeley)
Benno Schwikowski (Pasteur Institute, Paris)
Henning Hermjakob (EBI)
Ian Mulvany (eLife)
Michiel Helvensteijn (Leiden)
Jessie Kennedy (Napier University, Edinburgh)


Registration open NOW!

Please help us spread the word!

The BioJS.conf Organising Committee

URL: http://conf.biojs.net/

Contact Person: Manuel Corpas (mc@manuelcorpas.com)

CFP: APBC2016 – The Fourteenth Asia Pacific Bioinformatics Conference

*Please distribute it to interested colleagues and students *
=============================================
Full paper submission deadline is due on 30 July, 2015.

APBC2016 - The Fourteenth Asia Pacific Bioinformatics Conference
The Fourteenth Asia Pacific Bioinformatics Conference
San Francisco, United States
11-13 January 2016

http://www.sfasa.org/apbc2016/apbc2016.html

Organization

General Co-Chairs
Jing Huang, Ph.D. (Veracyte, USA)
Ying Lu, Ph.D. (Stanford University, USA)
Philip Bourne, Ph.D. (NIH/OD, USA)

Local Organization Chairs
Jing Huang, Ph.D. (Veracyte, USA)
Hua Tang, Ph.D. (Stanford University)
Haiyan Huang, Ph.D. (University of California, Berkeley, USA)

PC Co-Chairs
Lu Tian, Ph.D. (Stanford University, USA)
Jijun Tang, Ph.D. (University of South Carolina, USA)
Phoebe Chen, Ph.D. (La Trobe University, Australia)
============================================

Important Dates
Full Paper submission: July 30 ,2015
Author notification: August 30 , 2015
Final version due on: October 1 , 2015
Full paper author registration deadline: October 20 ,2015
Conference start and end dates: January 11 - 13 , 2016

The Asia-Pacific Bioinformatics Conference series is an annual forum for exploring research, development and novel applications of Bioinformatics. The past APBC conferences were held in:
· APBC2003 4-7 Feb 2003: Adelaide Australia
· APBC2004 18-22 Jan 2004: Dunedin, New Zealand
· APBC2005 17-21 Jan 2005: Singapore
· APBC2006 13-16 Feb, 2006: Taipei Taiwan
· APBC2007 15-17 Jan, 2007: Hong Kong
· APBC2008 14-17 Jan, 2008: Kyoto Japan
· APBC2009 13-16 Jan, 2009: Beijing China
· APBC2010 18-21 Jan, 2010: Bangalore, India
· APBC2011 11-14 Jan, 2011: Inchon, Korea
· APBC2012 17-19 Jan, 2012: Melbourne, Australia
· APBC2013 21-23 Jan 2013: Vancouver, BC, Canada
· APBC2014 17-19 Jan 2014: Shanghai, China
· APBC2015 21-23 Jan 2015: HsinChu, Taiwan
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Call for Papers

APBC2016 invites high-quality original full papers on any topic related to Bioinformatics and Computational Biology.

The submitted papers must have not been published or under consideration for publication in any other journal or conference with formal proceedings.
All accepted papers will have to be presented by one of the authors at the conference.

Accepted papers will be invited to be published in the journals BMC Genomics, BMC Bioinformatics, BMC Systems Biology following the journals' publication policy.

Use the following linked site to make your submission

https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=apbc2016

URL: http://www.sfasa.org/apbc2016/apbc2016.html
Contact Person: Jijun Tang  (jtang@cse.sc.edu)

Call for Editors - ISCB Community Journal

ISCB is seeking scholars interested in serving as volunteer editors for the ISCB Community Journal. If you are interested, please submit your nomination using our online system. If you have a colleague who may enjoy serving as a volunteer editor for ISCB, please feel free to forward this information.

The primary responsibility of an editor will be to oversee the content on the ISCB Community Journal homepage. Editors will work with the conferences and have the final decision on the selection of conference editors and editorial board proposed by the conferences. Editors will supervise the conference referee process and ensure the quality standards of referee reports, editorial decision and published papers. Editors will help to promote the journal and to increase the number of conferences publishing in the journal. The ISCB Community Journal editors will work closely with F1000Research to keep improving the journal and make sure it is meeting the aims and objectives of the ISCB.

Editors are appointed by the ISCB Board of Directors and will serve a three-year term* with the option to be renewed for one additional term.

URL: http://www.iscb.org/call-for-editors

Contact Person: Diane Kovats (dkovats@iscb.org)

FASEB PRESIDENT TESTIFIES BEFORE CONGRESS

Bethesda, MD – The President of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB), Joseph R. Haywood, PhD, testified before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services on April 29. Dr. Haywood advocated for sustained, predictable increases in funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Dr. Haywood asked the subcommittee to appropriate $32 billion for NIH in fiscal year 2016. He explained that a five year commitment to five percent annual increases would help restore the buying power of the NIH budget, which has declined by more than 22 percent since 2003.

"Every one of us is the spouse, parent, child, dear friend, or acquaintance of someone who is relying on our nation's scientists and physicians to develop tomorrow's treatments," Dr. Haywood told the subcommittee. "[NIH] investment is critical to expedite progress toward the cures that are so desperately needed for all of our loved ones, and for developing innovative technologies and new global industries to sustain the nation's continued economic recovery," he said.

FASEB is composed of 27 societies with more than 120,000 members, making it the largest coalition of biomedical research associations in the United States. Our mission is to advance health and welfare by promoting progress and education in biological and biomedical sciences through service to our member societies and collaborative advocacy.
URL: http://www.faseb.org

Contact Person: Debra Speert (dspeert@faseb.org)

Call for Papers: CIBB 2015 special session on 'New knowledge from old data: power of data analysis and integration methods'

September 10-12, 2015
Naples, Italy
http://bioinfo.na.iac.cnr.it/cibb2015/

AIMS AND SCOPE:
Mammalian systems constitute over 200 cell types, each specialized to perform a distinct function, and yet all cell types share the same DNA sequence. Epigenetic marks on DNA and histone tails together with transcription factors are responsible for the interpretation of the DNA sequence in each cellular context to produce a cell type specific transcription signature, and disruptions to these processes lead to disease. Advances in sequencing techniques have accelerated the characterization of epigenetic and transcriptional landscapes across many normal and malignant cell types. The challenge now is to integrate these data to understand transcriptional control at a systems level.

This session will focus on data analysis and data integration methods developed using data from, but not limited to, large consortia projects such as ENCODE, Roadmap Epigenomics or FANTOM to get new biological insights.

SUBMISSIONS:
Conference papers must be prepared following the guidelines illustrated on the CIBB website, which include the requirement of being between 4 and 6 pages in length and having five sections:
1. Scientific background
2. Material and methods
3. Results
4. Conclusion
5. References (no more than 10)

These papers should be submitted in PDF format on the Easy Chair conference system (it is necessary to select this special session in the submission system).
A second submission after the conference, in an extended version, is required to be considered for publication in the Springer\\\'s Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics (LNBI) series ([link]). Moreover, as it has been the case in previous CIBB conferences, we are planning to publish the best papers of CIBB 2015 in an extended form in a special issue of an international scientific journal, including special session papers.

IMPORTANT DATES:
Paper submission deadline: May 30, 2015
Abstract submission deadline: May 30, 2015
Notification of Acceptance: June 19, 2014 Final papers due: July 20, 2015 (*)
Conference: September 10-12, 2015
(*) for the inclusion in the CIBB15 conference proceeding

URL: http://bioinfo.na.iac.cnr.it/cibb2015/

Contact Person: Anagha Joshi (anagha.joshi@roslin.ed.ac.uk)

New Master in Bioinformatics at Ghent University

Recent technological advances allow for the generation of huge amounts of molecular data at an ever increasing pace and have dramatically changed our view on life science research. It goes without saying that this data avalanche, together with the need for multi-angle approaches to analyze these data, has created an urgent need for highly trained scientists with an interdisciplinary mindset. The new interfaculty Master of Science in Bioinformatics at Ghent University will start in the academic year 2015-2016 and aims to provide students with the necessary knowledge, skills and attitude to work in such interdisciplinary context.

This Master of Science in Bioinformatics provides a curriculum of 120 ECTS, taught in English. Bioinformatics is inherently multidisciplinary, and requires not only learning skills and knowledge from domains different than those of the bachelor\\\'s degree, but also acquiring a more in-depth knowledge and training in the domain that corresponds to the students' specific background and primary interest. The master is structured to provide both this broadening and deepening.

In a common track (33 ECTS) the master offers courses covering the different application domains of bioinformatics. This track, followed by all students irrespective of their background, primarily aims at educating the interdisciplinary competences that are of key importance to bioinformatics.

Depending on the specific background of the student, this common track is complemented with one of the following specialization tracks (each of which is 87 ECTS):

- Bioscience Engineering (title of 'Bioscience engineer')
- Systems Biology
- Engineering (title of 'Engineer')
URL: http://www.nucleotides2networks.be/master

Contact Person: Dr. Katrijn Vannerum (Katrijn.Vannerum@UGent.be)

Registration Open - Functional Genomics and Systems Biology: From Model Organisms

This long-running Wellcome Trust conference will bring together leading scientists from the fields of genomics, bioinformatics, proteomics and cellular networks to discuss the latest developments and challenges in systems biology.

Advances in DNA sequencing and other high throughput technologies over the past decade have resulted in a wealth of data describing the functions and interactions of various components within the cell. High-resolution maps of genome-wide transcription factors are shedding light on the mechanisms that regulate gene expression. Large-scale interaction networks are improving our understanding of biological systems. To improve our understanding of complex biological systems relevant to health and disease, these data, generated from disparate sources, need to be integrated in a biologically meaningful way.

This conference is an ideal forum to discuss the integration, interpretation and analysis of complex biological data from experimental and computational sources. We welcome the submission of abstracts from all areas relevant to the main themes of the meeting. Several oral presentations will be chosen from the abstracts submitted.


Topics will include
High throughput technologies: applications and analysis
Functional genomics of disease
Model organisms
Single cell analysis
Genome and epigenome regulation
Human genetic variation
Complex networks
Modelling biological networks and pathways


Scientific programme committee
Alvis Brazma EMBL-EBI, UK
Tom Freeman University of Edinburgh, UK
Anne-Claude Gavin EMBL, Germany
Tuuli Lappalainen New York Genome Center, USA
Nicholas Luscombe University College London, UK

Confirmed speakers
Ruedi Aebersold ETH Zurich, Switzerland
Emmanuelle Charpentier Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research, Germany
Peter Fraser Babraham Institute, UK
Marc Friedlander SciLifeLab/Stockholm University, Sweden
Eileen Furlong EMBL, Germany
Roderic Guigo Centre for Genomic Regulation, Spain
Tim Hughes University of Toronto, Canada
Jan Korbel EMBL, Germany
Laura Landweber Princeton University, USA
Ben Lehner Centre for Genomic Regulation, Spain
Leopold Parts Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, UK
James Sharpe Centre for Genomic Regulation, Spain
Sarah Teichmann EMBL-EBI, UK
Marian Walhout University of Massachusetts Medical School, USA
Michael Yaffe Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA
Judith Zaugg EMBL, Germany

Dates for your diary:
Abstract & Bursary deadline: 16 September

Registration deadline: 30 September


URL: https://registration.hinxton.wellcome.ac.uk/display_info.asp?id=517

Contact Person: Treasa Creavin (treasa.creavin@hinxton.wellcome.ac.uk)

FASEB Releases New Interactive Map of Federal Science Funding By District

FASEB Releases New Interactive Map of Federal Science Funding By District
Online resource is freely available to the public

Bethesda, MD – The Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) has released new interactive factsheets summarizing federal science funding in states and U.S. congressional districts. This is the only resource to feature up-to-date information about federal science funding at the district level and make it accessible to the general public.

"This innovative resource illustrates how federal investment in scientific research affects communities in every state," stated Joseph R. Haywood, PhD, FASEB President. "This is an easy way to help our representatives appreciate the impact of federal agency funding on science back home. More importantly, we urge scientists and the public to use this resource to discuss the importance of science funding with their elected officials."

After selecting a state from an online interactive U.S. map, users can drill down to access federal science funding in a single congressional district. Factsheets for each district detail local federal investment by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Science Foundation, United States Department of Agriculture, and Department of Energy. In addition to district funding data, users can also access factsheets detailing the impact of NIH investment in each state from the same map.

The district funding information is being shared with more than 100 congressional offices during FASEB's annual Capitol Hill Day today. Fifty representatives of FASEB member societies from 27 states are meeting with House and Senate offices to share FASEB's fiscal year 2016 funding recommendations as well as personal stories of how stable, sustained federal funding for research is essential to improve health and generate new knowledge.

FASEB is composed of 27 societies with more than 120,000 members, making it the largest coalition of biomedical research associations in the United States. Our mission is to advance health and welfare by promoting progress and education in biological and biomedical sciences through service to our member societies and collaborative advocacy.
URL: http://www.faseb.org

Contact Person: Lawrence Green (lgreen@faseb.org)

Opportunity for early- career bioscientists: Clarkson Early Career Colloquium in Bioscience Crossing Disciplines

Dear Fellow Chairs & Program Heads of Bioscience Departments,

As Chair of Biology at Clarkson University, I am writing to ask for your help at getting out the word and encouraging appropriate applicants for the inaugural Clarkson Early Career Colloquium in Bioscience Crossing Disciplines. This mini-conference is intended for early- career bioscientists, with particular outreach to women and underrepresented minorities seeking academic appointments at small research universities that also have a strong commitment to undergraduate and graduate education. Participants will have an opportunity to network and receive mentoring on how to land a job and what it is like to have a position at an academic institution with high research and teaching expectations such as Clarkson, or at a small research institute such as the Trudeau Institute. It provides an opportunity for Clarkson University and the Trudeau Institute, which intend to be hiring for more positions in the coming years, to meet and make contacts with promising scientists who could enhance and diversify our bioscience faculty. For this first colloquium, we are interested in broad areas of biosciences, including but not limited to bioengineering (including immunoengineering), ecological/evolutionary epidemiology, bioinformatics; behavioral endocrinology, biotechnology, cell biology, and synthetic biology.

I have attached a flyer and detailed announcement of the program. An advertisement will also soon appear in the Chronical of Higher Education.

Please feel free to forward this message to colleagues at your institution or elsewhere who mentor or may know appropriate candidates for this colloquium.


Tom Langen

Chair, Dept. of Biology
Professor, Depts. of Biology, Psychology
Clarkson University
Editorial Board, Environmental Management
mail: (office) Box 5805, Clarkson University, Potsdam NY 13699-5805
mail: (home) 7 Pleasant St., Canton NY 13617
phone:315 268 7933 (office), 315 261 0182 (cell)
URL: http://clarkson.edu/colloquium/

Contact Person: Dr. Tom Langen (tlangen@clarkson.edu)

Quantitative Biology: From Molecules to Man

Quantitative Biology: From Molecules to Man will bring together professionals in science, medicine, and engineering to articulate a vision for the future of improving patient health outcomes. Convergence science provides for a data-driven understanding of intricate biological processes across spatial and temporal scales. Achieving breakthroughs in healthcare requires a specific progression of steps from molecular-level experiments to manipulations and observations in model systems to human-scale investigations, all followed by major epidemiological studies. This one-day meeting will provide a forum for individuals involved in every stage of the process to engage in thought-provoking conversations and to generate actionable ideas for new approaches to finding solutions to some of humanity's most intractable health challenges. For more information please visit the website: www.nyas.org/QuantitativeBiology2015.
Poster Abstract Deadline: May 11, 2015

URL: http://www.nyas.org/QuantitativeBiology2015

Contact Person: Natasha Neysmith (nneysmith@nyas.org)

IMPACT-F optimizes lead candidates in drug discovery

Pharmaceutical companies use the expert system to forecast drug-uptake in humans.

The artificial intelligence technology, developed by PharmaInformatic, Germany, evaluates if a potential drug will be efficiently taken up in humans. IMPACT-F prioritizes drug-candidates based on predicted drug-uptake ("oral bioavailability"). This ranking allows the most efficient drug-candidates to be chosen for further development.

The technology has been used in therapeutic areas such as cancer, diabetes, inflammation, antivirals and autoimmune diseases. It has been applied to optimize lead candidates and to evaluate oral bioavailability and effective dose prior to human clinical trials. The first drug candidates evaluated with IMPACT-F have now progressed into clinical trials in humans.

Crucially, IMPACT-F improves drug discovery and development at a very early stage, since only the drug structure is needed to reliably forecast oral bioavailability. This enables pharmaceutical companies to focus resources on prospective drug development projects.

Oral bioavailability is one of the most important properties in lead optimisation. A drug must have sufficient oral bioavailability in humans otherwise clinical trials are not effective and drug development is then stopped. Low drug-uptake can result in high inter-individual variability and increases the risk of side-effects and toxicity.


Contact:
Dr. Wolfgang Boomgaarden, phone: +49-4921-993360
PharmaInformatic Boomgaarden, Friesenstr. 36, 26721 Emden, Germany, http://www.pharmainformatic.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PharmaInformati

Further detailed information:
http://www.pharmainformatic.com/html/lead_optimization.html#PM

Pharmaceutical companies using IMPACT-F (recent collaborations):
http://www.pharmainformatic.com/html/partnerships.html

URL: http://www.pharmainformatic.com/html/lead_optimization.html

Contact Person: Dr. Wolfgang Boomgaarden (presse@pharmainformatic.com)

Training Workshops in Bioinformatics and Omics

The Institute for Genome Sciences (IGS) is an internationally known research center located at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore. IGS offers five different workshops as part of a professional development program organized by Dr. Michelle Giglio, a faculty member at IGS with over 17 years of experience in genomics and bioinformatics. Dr. Giglio has recruited IGS faculty and staff to form a highly experienced instruction team to provide workshop participants with the knowledge and skills needed to engage in numerous omics applications. All IGS workshops are hands-on, providing attendees with real-world challenges and experience.

Please see our workshop dates listed below.

IMPORTANT DATES:

Metagenome Analysis
October 13th – 16th, 2015

Transcriptome Analysis
May 18th – 20th, 2015

Prokaryotic Comparative Genomics
September 29th – October 1st, 2015

Introduction to Genomics and Bioinformatics
November 2nd – 6th, 2015

FOR MORE INFORMATION & REGISTRATION:
www.igs.umaryland.edu/workshops

EMAIL:
Renée Nathaniel
Workshop Administrative Coordinator
rnathaniel@som.umaryland.edu

URL: http://www.igs.umaryland.edu/education/workshops.php

Contact Person: Renee Nathaniel (rnathaniel@som.umaryland.edu)

NIGMS Strategic Plan Now Available

The new NIGMS strategic plan is now available at: http://publications.nigms.nih.gov/strategicplan. We would like to thank all of you who provided input to help shape this document, which outlines many of the priorities and activities that we will pursue over the next 5 years. The plan is designed to serve as a framework to both codify and focus our efforts, while still allowing us the flexibility to pursue untapped opportunities in mission-relevant areas.

In addition to its specific goals, objectives, and implementation strategies, the plan reiterates our commitment to the stewardship of taxpayer funds and an atmosphere of open dialogue, collaboration and shared responsibility with the scientific community. We welcome any suggestions you may have that would help us become as efficient and effective as possible in the pursuit of our mission.
URL: http://publications.nigms.nih.gov/strategicplan/NIGMS-strategic-plan.pdf

Contact Person: Richard Aragon, Ph.D. (richard.aragon@nih.gov)

CFP: Workshop on Evolutionary Computation in Computational Structural Biology at ACM GECCO 2015

The focus of this workshop is the use of nature-inspired approaches to central problems in computational structural biology, including optimization methods under the umbrella of evolutionary computation. A particular emphasis will be on progress in the application of evolutionary computation to problems related to any aspects of protein structure modeling, characterization, and analysis.

The workshop will allow for a broader focus on all structure-related problems that necessitate the design of novel evolutionary computation approaches. These may include broader structure modeling settings beyond de novo structure prediction, such as mapping of protein and peptide energy landscapes, structure analysis, design, docking, and other emerging problems in computational structural biology.

We invite submissions on presentations of the
following topics:

Use of artificial life models like cellular automata or Lindenmayer systems in the modeling of biological problems.

Study and analysis of properties of biological systems like self-organization, emergent behavior or morphogenesis.

Multi-objective approaches in the modeling of computational biology problems.

Use of natural and evolutionary computation algorithms in protein structure classification and prediction (secondary and tertiary).

Mapping of protein and peptide energy landscapes.

Modeling of temporal folding of proteins.

Protein design

Protein-ligand and protein-protein docking.

For more information, visit: http://eccsb2015.irlab.org/
URL: http://eccsb2015.irlab.org/

Contact Person: Amarda Shehu (amarda@gmu.edu)

Nominations for the National Medals of Science and National Medals of Technology and Innovation

Nominations are currently being accepted for the National Medal of Science and National Medal of Technology and Innovation. The National Medals offer a unique opportunity to showcase the best and brightest minds within your organizations and the outstanding scientists and innovators you work with each and every day.

to submit a nomination for the National Medal of Science, go to: https://www.fastlane.nsf.gov/honawards/medalHome.do;jsessionid=3252526f6b085051de1479869ce2:Dqk3
to submit a nomination for the National Medal of Science.

To download the nomination form for the National Medal of Technology and Innovation, go to: http://www.uspto.gov/learning-and-resources/ip-programs-and-awards/national-medal-technology-and-innovation-nmti

URL: http://www.nsf.gov/od/nms/nominations.jsp

Contact Person: Fae M. Jencks (Fae_M_Jencks@ostp.eop.gov)

PLOS Computational Biology 2014 Reviewer Thank You

The Public Library of Science (PLOS) and the PLOS Computational Biology editorial team would like to express our tremendous gratitude to all those individuals who participated in the peer review process this past year at PLOS Computational Biology. As a journal that is run by and for the scientific community, we depend upon you, the community, to communicate our best work. 2014 was great year for PLOS Computational Biology; during the year, over 2700 reviewers from around the world helped evaluate over 1000 articles.

The names of our 2014 reviewers are listed in S1 Reviewer List. Thank you to all our reviewers for sharing your expertise with the PLOS Computational Biology authors. Your efforts are an important part of making the journal a highly valued open access resource created by and for the benefit of the scientific community.
URL: http://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1004184

Contact Person: PLOS Computational Biology (alerts@e.plos.org)

The FAceS Project Survey

As part of the FAceS project (www.faces.wi.tum.de/), the Chair for Strategy and Organization (Prof. Isabell M. Welpe) at the Technische Universität München, Germany, is currently conducting a survey about publication practices and performance measurement in science. To attain representative knowledge about publication practices and performance measurement across different countries and disciplines (e.g., biology), we are particularly interested in your assessment and specifications on this topic. Participation in this survey will take approximately 20 minutes. Participants will be offered the chance to participate in the raffle for an iPad mini. Upon request, we will be happy to send you a summary of the results of the survey.

Survey URL: http://ww3.unipark.de/uc/OA/

Contact Person: Ringelhan, Stefanie (performance-management.lso.wi@tum.de)

Raymond and Beverly Sackler Support New NAS Prize for Convergence Research

WASHINGTON — The National Academy of Sciences announced today the creation of the new Raymond and Beverly Sackler Prize in Convergence Research. A generous gift from Raymond and Beverly Sackler and the Raymond and Beverly Sackler Foundation will endow the prize, to be presented annually beginning this year with an inaugural $400,000 award.

"The prize will recognize significant advances in convergence research -- the integration of two or more of the following disciplines: mathematics, physics, chemistry, biomedicine, biology, astronomy, earth sciences, engineering, and computational science -- for achievements possible only through such integration. This year's prize will be awarded for convergence research that benefits human health. Two-thirds of the prize money will be awarded to the selected researcher(s), and the remaining third will go to support the researcher's work.

"Convergence research is responsible for major breakthroughs that are making real impacts on people's lives such as 3-D printing of human tissue, new biofuels, and more precise drug delivery systems," said Raymond Sackler. "Beverly and I hope that the recognition and prestige bestowed through this prize encourages more researchers to work across disciplines and make exciting new discoveries."

"Convergence science is not only necessary but critical to tackling some of the world's most pressing challenges," said National Academy of Sciences President Ralph J. Cicerone. "This generous gift allows the National Academy of Sciences to highlight and support the revolutionary advances in science that result from interdisciplinary ideas and approaches."

Dr. Raymond Sackler is a founder and board member of Purdue Pharma L.P., Stamford, Conn., and the Mundipharma Companies of Europe, Asia and Africa. Individually and through their foundations, Dr. Sackler and his wife Beverly have sponsored scientific and biomedical research at a number of major U.S. academic centers, including: Boston University; CalTech (in collaboration with University of California, Los Angeles); Columbia University; Dana Farber Research Institute; Duke University; Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton); Massachusetts Institute of Technology; MD Anderson Cancer Center; Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center; New York University; Rockefeller University; Tufts University; University of California, Berkeley (in collaboration with University of California, San Francisco); University of Connecticut; University of Toledo College of Medicine; University of Washington, Seattle; Weill Cornell Medical School; Yale University; and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. International academic centers include Cambridge University (UK), Institut des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques (France), Tel Aviv University (Israel); University of Leiden (Netherlands); and the University of Toronto (Canada).

The National Academy of Sciences is a private, nonprofit institution that was established under a congressional charter signed by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863. It recognizes achievement in science by election to membership, and -- with the National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine, and National Research Council -- provides science, technology, and health policy advice to the nation.

URL: http://www.national-academies.org/newsroom

Contact Person: Molly Galvin, Senior Media Relations Officer (news@nas.edu)

16th International Conference on Density Functional Theory and its Applications

The 16th International Conference on Density Functional Theory and its Applications is going to take place in Debrecen, Hungary, August 31- September 4, 2015. It will be the following in a series of biennial meetings, which have taken place in Paris (1995), Vienna (1997), Rome (1999), Madrid (2001), Brussels (2003), Geneva (2005), Amsterdam (2007), Lyon (2009), Athens (2011) and Durham (2013).

DFT2015 covers a wide range of topics related with density functional theory. It brings together researchers from all around the world working on the development of the theory, extensions to new fields and providing a broad range of fascinating applications including biomolecular modeling, bio­reactions.
URL: http://dft2015.unideb.hu/home

Contact Person: Professor A. Nagy (anagy@phys.unideb.hu)

The DREAM9.5 Challenges

We are pleased to announce that the DREAM Olfaction Prediction Challenge, the first of the DREAM9.5 Challenges is now open for participation. This Challenge focuses on predicting behavioral responses to a panel of odors, and features a first-of-its-kind dataset. To learn more and join this Challenge, go to: https://www.synapse.org/#!Synapse:syn2811262.

Besides joining the Olfaction Prediction Challenge, you can also pre-register for one or more of the other 9.5 Challenges in preparation. In this way we can keep you informed about the readiness of these three Challenges for participation.

Best performers from the DREAM9.5 Challenges will be invited to present at the DREAM Conference (Nov 16, 2015, Philadelphia, PA, USA) with travel expenses covered by the DREAM/Sage organizers. DREAM and Sage Bionetworks are also working with high impact journals to ensure that the methodology developed by the Challenges' best performers will be considered for publication under the Challenge-assisted Peer Review format

The DREAM9.5 Challenges

1) DREAM Olfaction Prediction Challenge: OPEN ·
* Challenge Focus: Predict behavioral responses to a panel of odors
* Join the Challenge: https://www.synapse.org/#!Synapse:syn2811262

2) Prostate Cancer DREAM Challenge. Launch Target: Late February, 2015
* Challenge Focus: Predict survival for prostate cancer patients based on patients' clinical variables
* Learn more and pre-register for this Challenge: https://www.synapse.org/#!Synapse:syn2813558

3) ICGC-TCGA DREAM Somatic Mutation Calling Tumor Heterogeneity Challenge (SMC-Het): Launch Target: Early March, 2015
* Challenge Focus: Identify the best subclonal reconstruction algorithms and to identify the conditions that affect their performance.
* Learn more and pre-register for this Challenge: https://www.synapse.org/#!Synapse:syn2813581

4) ICGC-TCGA DREAM Somatic Mutation Calling RNA Challenge (SMC-RNA): Launch Target: TBA
* Challenge Focus: Benchmark approaches for the calling of various types of RNA mutations and splice variants
* Learn more and pre-register for this Challenge: https://www.synapse.org/#!Synapse:syn2813589

To learn more about DREAM and Sage Bionetworks please go to http://dreamchallenges.org/ and http://sagebase.org

URL: http://dreamchallenges.org/

Contact Person: Gustavo Stolovitzky (gustavo@us.ibm.com)

ISCB Fight against Ebola Award

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 as well as 3-D 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$2,000, at its July 2016 annual meeting (ISCB Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology (ISMB) 2016, Orlando, Florida).
URL: http://f1000research.com/articles/4-12/v1

Contact Person: Diane Kovats (dkovats@iscb.org)

FASEB Releases Sustaining Discovery in Biological and Medical Science

This week, the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) released an analysis of the threats to continued progress in biological and medical science research. Sustaining Discovery in Biological and Medical Science: A Framework for Discussion examines the challenges facing researchers and presents a series of recommendations to alleviate them.

Sustaining Discovery in Biological and Medical Science: A Framework for Discussiondocuments how shortfalls in federal funding and rising regulatory costs have constrained research budgets. At the same time, scientific opportunities have expanded and more individuals are seeking funding. These opposing trends have resulted in an increasingly unstable research enterprise, delaying scientific discovery.

In the newly released statement, FASEB offers three broad categories of recommendations for consideration:

· Increased advocacy for predictable, sustainable growth in research budgets while striving to make optimal use of existing resources
· Re-examination of the way research is funded, making certain that we provide incentives to encourage the best science and reduce the amount of time spent seeking funding, and
· Improved preparation and utilization of the workforce.

To facilitate feedback from the members of FASEB societies and the broader research community, FASEB has created a website for reviewing the document and recording comments.

FASEB is composed of 27 societies with more than 120,000 members, making it the largest coalition of biomedical research associations in the United States. Our mission is to advance health and welfare by promoting progress and education in biological and biomedical sciences through service to our member societies and collaborative advocacy.
URL: http://faseb.org

Contact Person: Lawrence Green (lgreen@faseb.org)

Science Insider Story About Sustaining Discovery

An article on the Sustaining Discovery discussion framework was posted this morning: http://news.sciencemag.org/biology/2015/01/largest-u-s-biomedical-research-society-weighs-nih-s-budget-woes

The Sustaining Discovery website is now live at http://www.faseb.org/SustainingDiscovery/Home.aspx
URL: http://www.faseb.org

Contact Person: Howard H. Garrison, Ph.D. (info@faseb.org)

FASEB Releases Its Newest Publication in the Horizons in Bioscience Series

Bethesda, MD – The Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) is pleased to announce the release of the latest publication in the Horizons in Bioscienceseries, "Nanomedicine: A Targeted Approach." The article describes the emerging field of nanoparticle targeting.

Nanomedicine is beginning to change the way scientists and physicians diagnose and treat disease. Unlike conventional therapies, these tiny particles – 1,000 times smaller than the diameter of a human hair – can seek out diseased tissue and access hard to reach places in the body. This article will provide readers with an understanding of what nanoparticles are, how they specifically target diseased tissue, and how they can diagnose and treat some of our most devastating diseases.


The Horizons in Bioscience series is a collection of short, illustrated articles published by FASEB that describe scientific discoveries on the brink of clinical application. Printed copies of the articles are available at no cost for educational or advocacy purposes and can be requested by visiting the Breakthroughs in Bioscience website at www.faseb.org/breakthroughs or by contacting FASEB's Office of Public Affairs at 301-634-7650.
URL: http://www.faseb.org/pdfviewer.aspx?loadthis=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.faseb.org%2FPortals%2F2%2FPDFs%2Fopa%2F2015%2Fnanoparticles%2520horizons%2520article.pdf

Contact Person: Lawrence Green (mailto:lgreen@faseb.org)

RECOMB 2015 Call for Posters and Highlights

RECOMB 2015 (http://www.recomb2015.pl ) invites the submission of abstracts of papers that have been published in a journal after October 1, 2013 or papers that are "in press" at the time of submission and are already linked on the journal web site.

"Highlight" papers can be submitted to the main RECOMB conference as well as to the satellite meetings RECOMB-seq and RECOMB-ccb (http://www.recomb2015.pl/satellite-meetings ). The papers will be selected for presentation by taking into consideration the impact of the work on the field, the likelihood that the work will make a good presentation and the relevance to biological and biomedical research in general.

Please visit https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=recomb2015 to submit your abstract. Submissions must contain an abstract (about 200 words, plain justified text in 10pt character size, formatted to fit A4: 21 x 29.7 cm, including title, author(s), affiliation, e-mail, a link to the published journal version, the identity of the presenter (in case of a multi-authored paper), the name of the meeting(s)submitted to in order of preference (i.e., RECOMB, RECOMB-seq, or RECOMB-ccb) followed by the abstract text. Abstracts lacking this information will not be considered. Accepted presenters for the Highlight Track are required to make the presentation themselves, and must register and pay to attend the conference.

Key dates
Submission deadline: January 15, 2015
Acceptance notification: January 31, 2015

Please also be aware that RECOMB 2015 allows presentation of your work in a poster session. The poster abstract submission is handled by tha same website and the submission deadline is February 15th.

More information can be found on the RECOMB 2015 website: http://www.recomb2105.pl

URL: http://www.recomb2015.pl

Contact Person: Bartek Wilczynski (bartek@mimuw.edu.pl)