ATTEND ONE OF THE PREMIER INTERNATIONAL MEETINGS IN BIOINFORMATICS

AND ENJOY THE RARE SIGHT OF A TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSE

The ISMB conference provides a general forum for disseminating the latest developments in bioinformatics. ISMB is a multidisciplinary conference that brings together scientists from computer science, molecular biology, mathematics and statistics. Its scope includes the development and application of advanced computational methods for biological problems.

Relevant computational techniques include, but are not limited to:

• machine learning,
• pattern recognition,
• knowledge representation,
• databases, combinatorics,
• stochastic modeling,
• string and graph algorithms,
• linguistic methods,
• robotics,
• constraint satisfaction, and
• parallel computation.

Biological areas of interest include :

• molecular structure,
• genomics,
• molecular sequence analysis,
• evolution and phylogenetics,
• molecular interactions,
• metabolic pathways,
• regulatory networks,
• developmental control, and
• molecular biology generally.

Emphasis is placed on the validation of methods using real data sets, on practical applications in the biological sciences, and on development of novel computational techniques.

The five-day conference is going to be held in the Stadthalle Heidelberg in the center of the picturesque town of Heidelberg in Germany. Heidelberg is one of the scientific centers of Molecular Biology in Germany. In addition to its renown University and two Max-Planck Institutes, the European Molecular Biology Laboratory and the German National Cancer Research Center are located there as well as many pharmaceutical and biotech companies. The region receives special funding as one of three BioRegio regions in Germany. Heidelberg can be reached conveniently by train or shuttle from Frankfurt airport.

The conference precedes a total solar eclipse which will happen just south of Heidelberg on August 11, 1999. Total solar eclipses are extremely rare astronomical events, happening only every few hundred years over a given point on earth. The next total solar eclipse in central Europe is going to happen in the year 2081; over North America the next total solar eclipse is in the year 2017.

The conference will feature original, refereed papers, software demonstrations, posters and introductory tutorials. There will also be an exhibition of hardware and software vendors. Papers will be published by the AAAI in an archival proceedings and are indexed in the Medline database, and will be provided to participants as a bound volume at the conference.

The previous ISMB meetings were:

1993: National Library of Medicine, USA

1994: Stanford University, USA

1995: Cambridge University, UK

1996: Washington University, USA

1997: Halkidiki, Greece

1998: Montreal, Canada

Keynote speakers

Manfred Eigen, Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry,

Goettingen Germany (Nobel Laureate in Chemistry 1967)

Amos Bairoch, University of Geneva, Switzerland

Richard Karp, University of Washington, Seattle WA

Anthony Kerlavage, Celera Genomics Corporation, Rockville MD

Eugene Koonin, NCBI, Bethesda MD

Rob Lipshutz, Affymetrix Inc., Santa Clara CA

Matthias Mann, Odense University, Denmark

Michael Sternberg, ICRF, London UK

Paper format

Papers should be a maximum of 12 pages, single-spaced and set in 12 point type, including title, abstract, figures, tables, and bibliography. The first page should give keywords, postal and electronic mailing addresses, telephone, and fax numbers. See the WWW page for other conference details.

Submission information

For physical submission, please send five copies of your paper to:

ISMB '99
c/o Thomas Lengauer
GMD-SCAI
Schloss Birlinghoven
D-53754 Sankt Augustin
Germany

Papers can also be sent electronically (postscript format only) to ismb99@gmd.de

ISMB-99 Organizing Committee

Peer Bork EMBL Heidelberg and MDC Berlin, Germany

Doug Brutlag Stanford University, USA

Janice Glasgow Queen's University, Canada

Thomas Lengauer GMD Sankt Augustin, Germany

Hans Werner Mewes MIPS Martinsried, Germany

Reinhard Schneider LION bioscience AG, Heidelberg, Germany

Ralf Zimmer GMD Sankt Augustin, Germany

Key Dates

Meeting:

Tutorial presentations: Aug 6, 1999

Paper presentations: Aug 7-10, 1999

Paper Submissions

Papers must be received by: Jan 31, 1999

Replies to authors by: Mar 20, 1999

Revised papers must be received by: Apr 9, 1999

Open Poster Submissions

Abstracts must be received by: May 28, 1999

Tutorial Proposals

Short (1-para) proposals must be received by: Jan 10, 1999

Full (3pp) proposals must be received by: Feb 5, 1999

Replies to proposers by: Mar 26, 1999

Draft handouts must be received by: Apr 25, 1999

Final handouts must be received by: Jun 20, 1999

Tutorials presented: Aug 6, 1999

ISMB-99 Contact address: ismb99@gmd.de