Author: NicoleVasilevsky

Call for Papers: 13th International Society for Biocuration meeting, DATABASE Journal Virtual Issue

The International Biocuration Conference is a unique event for biocurators and developers of biological databases to discuss their work, promote collaborations, and foster a sense of community in this very active and growing area of research.  For the 13th International Biocuration Conference in Bar Harbor, Maine, USA, you are invited to submit your work for publication. This call for papers is done in collaboration between DATABASE: The Journal of Biological Databases and Curation and the International Society for Biocuration. The DATABASE journal will publish an online Virtual Issue of the accepted papers. See below for a link to last year’s issue. This is the perfect opportunity to enhance the recognition of your work and of our profession by the greater biological research communities.  Additionally, the Biocuration 2020 scientific committee will consider inclusion of accepted papers for full oral presentations at the conference. Note that you must also register and submit your abstract separately for the meeting. 

The manuscript review process will be expedited by the journal’s associated editors and they will thus need to be firm on the submission deadlines:

Submission deadline: October 31, 2019
First decisions: December 6, 2019
Deadline for revisions: January 10, 2020
Final decisions: February 28, 2020
Conference: May 17-20, 2020

Authors wishing to submit to DATABASE for the 2020 Biocuration Virtual issue should go to the DATABASE home page and click on the “Submission Site”  Submit menu option after having read the “Instructions to Authors”. Authors should CLEARLY state that they are submitting the manuscript for consideration for the Biocuration 2020 conference so that the DATABASE staff will ensure appropriate fast-track for inclusion in this meeting’s proceedings.  In addition, within the database submission form, you should also select “Biocuration Conference Paper” as a manuscript type.  We look forward to your participation at Biocuration 2020, the 13th International Biocuration Conference.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Submitting a paper to DATABASE does not in itself automatically register you to give a talk or poster at the Biocuration 2020 conference.  You must register for the meeting and submit your abstract separately to be considered for a presentation.  Information about abstract submission for the meeting will be announced soon.

The proceedings of the past International Biocuration Conference, the Biocuration Virtual Issue are online.

ISB membership payment issues resolved

If you have delayed joining the Society, or renewing an existing membership due to the problems we have been experiencing with our payment system, we are happy to announce that these have now been resolved and invite you to start/renew your membership now (www.biocuration.org/membership/membership-levels/).


Please remember you must be a member of the Society to vote in the upcoming elections, which will be held from October 14-20, 2019. More information about the election is here. 


We apologize for any inconvenience we may have caused you.

Deadline extended for ISB Executive Committee (EC) Election 2019

The deadline for nominations for the ISB EC Election has been extended to 15 September, 2019

The election of the new International Society for Biocuration Executive Committee (ISB EC) will be held from 14 -20 October, 2019. The Executive Committee is composed of nine (9) members, each with a 3-year term. Being a member of the Executive Committee is a great way to become directly involved with the work of our society, and contribute to the decisions that are taken on behalf of the biocuration community. We would like to encourage all members interested in running for election to get involved in the process.

Serving on the ISB EC minimally involves attending monthly (1 hour)  teleconference meetings, following up on any action items from meetings, and  promoting the ISB’s activity to members and non-members. Examples of activities performed by EC members include reviewing micro-grant submissions, preparing call for participation for hosting Biocuration meetings, preparing materials for the ISB election, monitoring ISB mail and maintaining the website. There are specific positions such as Chair, Secretary and Treasurer that will require a larger time commitment, as they will be in charge of leading the steps of the EC and by extension the membership.

This year, there are two (2) open positions, as the terms of Andrew Su and Pete McQuilton will come to completion. (The current ISB EC members are here.)

2019 Electoral Process

A) The Nominating Committee:

A Nominating Committee (NC) has been formed to oversee the electoral process, to review applications, and establish the final list of candidates. We are very grateful for their assistance with the execution of this election. The members of the 2019 Nominating Committee are:

  • Marc Robinson-Rechavi 
  • Susan Clew
  • Rachael Huntley
  • Zhang Zhang
  • Raja Mazumder

B) Instructions to Candidates: 

  1. If you would like to run for a position on the Executive Committee, you must first register your intent with the NC by emailing isb-election-2019@googlegroups.com
  2. Please fill out this form by 15 September 2019, which includes a ‘statement of intent‘, a brief biographical sketch, and a ‘conflict of interests‘ statement describing any activities, memberships of other associations, editorial positions on journals, etc. (Please email us at isb-election-2019@googlegroups.com if you are unable to access this form.)

C) Timeline:

  • Nominations will be received until 15 September 2019.
  • The NC will review all candidacies and share their selections with the ISB Executive Committee by 29 September 2019.
  • Candidates must be announced to the membership and on website (with letters of intent) by 11 October 2019.
  • Voting will take place online over the course of one week from 14 October – 20 October 2019. (Further details about the voting process will be shared closer to the date). Lorna Richardson will act as election officer.
  • Only paying members* with registration fees cleared on or before 11 October 2019 will be allowed to vote. If you pay your registration via bank transfer, please allow at least 2-3 working days for the payment to be processed.

*Note – please contact us at intsocbio@gmail.com if you have issues with registering or renewing your membership. Known issues exist with our membership payment system.

The Nominating Committee is looking forward to receiving your applications!

Qaaifah Gillani Syed and Zannatun Nayema awarded travel fellowships to BC2 conference

Congratulations to Qaaifah Gillani Syed and Zannatun Nayema, who have been selected for the [BC]2 Travel Fellowships.

Qaaifah Gillani Syed (University of Kashmir, IN)
Qaaifah Gillani Syed is a PhD student in the group of Shaida Andrabi in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Kashmir in India. Her research is focusing on Cancer Biology and by using different bioinformatics tools, she is studying the mitotic and oncogenic role of different kinases.
Zannatun Nayema (Kanazawa University, JP)
Zannatun Nayema is a first-year PhD student in the group of Atsushi Tajima in the Department of Bioinformatics and Genomics at the Kanazawa University in Japan. Her main research focus is on the analysis of Genome Wide Association Studies connected to the Metabolic syndrome (a cluster of conditions that increases the risk of heart disease, stroke and diabetes) and polygenic risk score analyses.

Read more about their fellowships here. Read the announcement about the travel fellowship opportunity here.

Apply for travel fellowship to [BC]2 Basel Computational Biology Conference

ISB is happy to announce that it will provide two travel fellowships to current ISB members in the amount of 500 CHF (approx. USD $500) to attend the [BC]2Basel Computational Biology Conference, from September 10-11, 2019 at the Congress Centre in Basel, Switzerland.

To apply, and for more information, click here. Note, you must be a member* of the ISB to apply. The applicant must submit an accompanying letter explaining why s/he is requesting travel funds and how s/he envisions that attending the [BC]2 conference will benefit her/his career.

Application materials should be sent via email to bc2@sib.swiss with the subject line ‘ISB Travel Fellowships to [BC]2 2019′ by Sunday, 16 June 2019, 23:59 CET.

Notification of award will be sent via email on 24 June, 2019 and announced on the ISB and [BC]2 website after acceptance of the award.

Students, junior curators, curators from low-income countries, and curators from countries suffering from natural disasters are encouraged to apply.

The [BC]2 Basel Computational Biology Conference is the key computational biology event in Switzerland and one of the major bioinformatics events in Europe. It unites scientists working in a broad range of disciplines, including bioinformatics, computational biology, and systems biology. The conference will feature presentations of latest research results, workshops, tutorials, poster sessions, and keynote lectures by international experts providing a prime opportunity to learn about cutting-edge research in computational biology and bioinformatics, and to network with other members of our community.

This year’s thematic focus is on the use of “Big Data in Molecular Medicine” with plenary sessions on single-cell data, evolutionary medicine, clinical population genomics, systems biology of disease and multi-level data integration. Tutorials and workshops will focus on a variety of topics such as “Introduction and advanced usage of machine learning for biological problems”, “Handling and accessing genomic data”, “Analysis of single cell data” and “Analysis of viral and bacterial genomic data”.

In 2019, [BC]2 will take place in the context of Basel Life – Europe’s leading congress in the Life Sciences – and participants are free to attend all sessions of Basel Life including the EMBO meeting on “Next-generation molecular medicine”.

Click below for more details on:

*We have recently been experiencing some technical difficulties with our membership registration system. Please contact us at intsocbio@gmail.com if you have any issues. If you are having difficulties with renewing or registering for membership, are still encouraged and eligible to apply for the [BC]2 travel fellowship.

Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) at Biocuration 2019

The workshop on ‘Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI)’ was chaired by Executive Committee member and GigaScience’s, Mary Ann Tuli. The introductory slides explained what these terms mean and how they are being embraced by scientific institutes in different countries. This was followed by a more in-depth and very informative presentation by the invited speaker Dr Saher Ahmed, head of EDI at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, Cambridge, UK. Dr. Ahmed discussed gender discrepancies in the workplace, and highlighted some efforts at Sanger to address these issues, such as pay transparency, changes to their leave policies, and creating a family-friendly workplace.

The remaining time was spent on some lively discussion by the 30 attendees, exchanging views on the gender pay gap, maternity, paternity & carers leave, cultural differences in working practices and accessibility. As an outcome of this workshop, attendees agreed there is a need for the ISB to create an EDI subcommittee and that this workshop should be held at subsequent Biocuration meetings. The EDI subcommittee is currently being formed, and the exact roles are to be defined, but they will address issues including a code of conduct amongst the Society as a whole and at conferences, and accessibility at conferences and for ISB activities.

Image credit: George Georghiou

Apply now for PgCert in Biocuration at Cambridge University

This one year, masters’ level course has been jointly designed by EMBL-EBI and Cambridge University, with input from members of this society.
It has been designed to be studies around full time employment – the course consist of 3 modules, each comprised of a 3 day face to face workshop followed by 8-10 weeks of study offsite, coordinated using the University online learning system.


For further details and links to apply please visit the website: https://www.ice.cam.ac.uk/course/postgraduate-certificate-biocuration


Applications for this year close on the 17th May, with the course starting in October 2019.


If you have any queries please do not hesitate to get in touch.

Anne Morgat and Val Wood – recipients of the 2019 biocuration awards

It is our great pleasure to announce the recipients of the 2019 biocuration awards

Dr. Anne Morgat from the SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics for the Biocuration Career Award. Anne has worked for over 15 years on the development of resources and vocabularies for the description of enzymatic reactions and metabolic pathways, such as UniPathway and Rhea, and their integration in UniProtKB.

Dr. Val Wood from the University of Cambridge for the Exceptional Contributions to Biocuration Award. Val leads the Model Organism Database for the fission yeast PomBase. Her team has made essential contributions to the Gene Ontology (GO) consortium, from the ontology development, through annotations and quality control, as well as informatics methods. She has been a huge innovator in the biocuration field, pioneering community curation with the CANTO tool, and developing Fission Yeast Phenotype Ontology (FYPO), a cellular phenotype ontology, to annotate phenotypes of mutant alleles.

Congratulations to Anne and Val!

Nominations for 2019 Biocuration Awards – now open

The International Society for Biocuration is happy to announce the 2019 Biocuration Awards.

In 2019 ISB will give two different awards to people who have made a significant impact in the field of biocuration. We welcome your nominations!

Description of the awards:

1) Award for Exceptional Contributions to Biocuration
ISB’s Exceptional Contributions Award recognizes a person who is a leader or a pioneer in the field of biocuration, and whose work has been fundamental to the advancement of biocuration.

2) Biocuration Career Award
The Biocuration Career Award recognizes biocurators in non-leadership positions who have made sustained contributions to the field of biocuration. Those who hold Principal Investigator or Group Leader positions are not eligible for the Biocuration Career Award.

Each award recipient will be invited to present a talk at the 2019 International Biocuration Conference that will take place in Cambridge (UK) in April (https://www.biocuration2019.org/), with all expenses paid by ISB.

Nomination process:
Nominations will be reviewed by the 2019 ISB Awards Committee, comprised of one member of the ISB’s Executive Committee (ISB-EC) and six (6) additional members from the wider research community; these members were nominated by the ISB-EC based on diversity in area of expertise, organization type, role, and geographic location.

Who can nominate and/or be nominated?

  • Any currently active ISB member may nominate anyone in the field of biocuration, whether the potential nominee is a member of ISB or not.
  • Members of the ISB can make no more than 1 nomination per award.
  • Current members of the Executive Committee or the ISB Award Committee are not eligible for the awards.
  • Self-nominations will not be considered.

How to submit a nomination:

Nominations should be sent via email to the awards committee at intsocbio@gmail.com with the subject line “Biocuration Awards Nominations”.

The nomination email should contain all the following fields:

  • Nominator details (name, e-mail and affiliation, member of ISB);
  • Nominee details (name, e-mail and affiliation);
  • Type of award nomination (either Exceptional Contributions to Biocuration or Biocuration Career Award);
  • Short list of scholarly contributions (a maximum of 50 words);
  • Brief description of why you are recommending this person (a maximum of 350 words).

Deadline for submitting nominations:  Friday 4-January-2019