NSF Support of U.S.-based Travel to the Eighth International Conference on Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology, August, 2000, San Diego, CA

University Of California-San Diego, La Jolla CA

Investigators

Abstract

This award will support increased participation of students and young researchers in the 8th International Conference on Intelligent Systems in Molecular Biology (ISMB) to be held August 19-23 in San Diego. The ISMB conference provides a general forum for disseminating the latest developments in bioinformatics, and is noteworthy for bringing together scientists from computer science, molecular biology, mathematics and statistics. Using the funds provided by this award, the ISMB organizing committee will provide stipends to graduate students, postdocs and other young scientists who have authored or co-authored a paper to be presented at the conference. Other criteria including financial need and the diversity of individuals and institutions will be used to select recipients and establish the amount of the stipend. It is expected that a minimum of 25 stipends will be offered. The term intelligent systems refers to software which goes beyond straightforward, closed-form algorithms or standard database technologies. Typically, such software views data in a symbolic fashion, learns from examples, consolidates multiple levels of abstraction, or otherwise synthesizes results in ways that make them more readily understood. Biological areas of great current interest include structural biology, genomics, molecular sequence analysis, evolution and phylogenetics, molecular interactions, metabolic pathways, regulatory networks, and control of development. Emphasis is on practical applications in the biological sciences, and on development of novel computational techniques. Attendance at the ISMB conference, which is held annually, has increased 5-fold since the first was held in 1993. The conference purposefully alternates its venue between North American sites and sites in other hemispheres to foster international exchange and cooperation.