One Week to the Submission Deadline

Call for Papers

Submissions are now invited Bio-Ontologies 2008: Knowledge in Biology, a SIG at Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology 2008.

Key Dates

• Submission due: Friday 2nd May
• Notifications: Friday 23rd May
• Final Version Due: Friday 30th May
• Workshop: Sunday 20th July

Introduction

Bio-Ontologies has existed as a SIG at ISMB for more than a decade, making it one of the longest running. For this time, Bio-Ontologies has provided a forum for discussion on the latest and most cutting edge research on ontologies.

In this decade, the use of ontologies has become mature, moving from niche to mainstream usage within bioinformatics. Following on from last year's reflective look, this year we are broadening the scope of SIG; we are interested in any formal or informal approach to organising, presenting and disseminating knowledge in biology.

So, for example:

• Semantic and/or Scientific wikis.
• Multimedia blogs
• Folksonomies
• Tag Clouds
• Collaborative Curation Platforms
• Collaborative Ontology Authoring and Peer-Review Mechanisms

are topics which will be of relevance to the SIG, in addition to the more traditional areas for bio-ontologies.

• Biological Applications of Ontologies
• Reports on Newly Developed or Existing Bio-Ontologies
• Tools for Developing Ontologies
• Use of Ontologies in Data Communication Standards
• Use of Semantic Web technologies in Bioinformatics
• Implications of Bio-Ontologies or the Semantic Web for drug discovery
• Current Research In Ontology Languages and its implication for Bio-Ontologies

Please note, that this year ISCB have made an innovative schedule, holding some of the SIGs DURING ISMB. Bio-Ontologies is on the Sunday parallel to the main conference.

The best papers from Bio-Ontologies 2008: Knowledge in Biology will be published in BMC Bioinformatics.

Programme

This year's keynote speaker will be Professor Philip E. Bourne, from the Skaggs School of Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Sciences, UCSD.

Our panel session will the following members:

• Philip E. Bourne, UCSD
• Helen Parkinson, European Bioinformatics Institute
• Matt Cockerill, BioMed Central
• Mark Wilkinson, University of British Columbia

Submissions

Submissions are now open and can be submitted through easychair.

Instructions to Authors

We are inviting two types of submissions.

• Short papers, up to 4 pages.
• Poster abstracts, up to 1/2 page.

Following review, successful papers will be presented at the Bio-Ontologies SIG. Poster abstracts will be provided poster space and time will be allocated during the day for at least one poster session.

Unsuccesful papers will automatically be considered for poster presentation; there is no need to submit both on the same topic.

The best papers from Bio-Ontologies 2008: Knowledge in Biology will be published in BMC Bioinformatics.

Organisers

Phillip Lord, Newcastle University
Susanna-Assunta Sansone, EBI
Nigam Shah, Stanford
Matt Cockerill, BioMedCentral

Programme Committee

The programme committee, organised alphabetically is:

Mike Bada, University of Colorado
Judith Blake, Jackson Laboratory
Frank Gibson, Newcastle University
Cliff Joslyn, Pacific National Laboratory
Wacek Kusnierczyk, Norwegian University of Science
                      and Technology
Robin MacEntire, GSK
James Malone, EBI
Helen Parkinson, EBI
Daniel Rubin, Stanford University
Alan Ruttenberg, Science Commons
Susie M. Stephens, Eli Lilly
Robert Stevens, University of Manchester

and the conference organisers.

Templates

Submission templates are available from the website.