FULL PAPER AND ABSTRACT SUBMISSIONS for InCoB 2016 conference is OPEN!

Dear Colleague,

We are pleased to announce that the 15th annual International Conference on Bioinformatics (InCoB 2016) will be held in Biopolis, The Matrix, Singapore on September 21 – 23, 2016.

Full paper submissions for BMC Genomics, BMC System Biology, BMC Bioinformatics, BMC Medical Genomics, and Journal of Bioinformatics and Computational Biology can now be made via EasyChair https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=incob2016.

Poster/Demo/Highlights Abstract Submissions
Abstracts for oral software/database demonstrations and research highlights and for poster presentations can be submitted now.

Breakout Sessions
The conference has also allowed the opportunity for proposing breakout sessions.

Key Dates:

 20 March  Full Paper Submission Deadline
 20 March  Breakout Session/Co-located Workshop Proposals
 20 May  Student and Early Career Travel Fellowship Application Deadline
 20 June  Demonstration, Highlight and Poster Abstract Submission Deadline
 20 July  Acceptance of final full paper versions and abstracts of posters, demos and  highlights
 30 July  Early bird Registration Deadline

Featuring keynote speakers:

  • Sydney Brenner – Nobel Laureate, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, A*STAR
  • Sir Thomas Leon Blundell – University of Cambridge
  • Hiroaki Kitano – Systems Biology Institute
  • Vanessa Hayes – University of Sydney
  • Mihaela Zavolan – University of Basel
  • Philip E. Bourne – National Institute of Health

Please visit the conference website (http://incob16.apbionet.org/) for further information or contact the Conference Secretariat, Hu Yongli ([email protected]).

Regards,

Chandra Verma, Bioinformatics Institute, A*STAR, Singapore, Conference Chair
Lawrence Jin Kiat Wee, Institute for Infocomm Research, A*STAR, Singapore, Conference Co-Chairs
Peter Bond, Bioinformatics Institute, A*STAR, Singapore, Conference Co-Chairs
Scientific Program Committee Co-Chairs
Shoba Ranganathan, APBioNet President
Christian Schönbach, APBioNet Vice President, Conferences

DETAILED INSTRUCTIONS FOR FULL PAPER SUBMISSIONS:
http://incob16.apbionet.org/InCOB_2016_CFP.docx

Cover letter for full paper submissions
All submitting authors are required to submit together with the manuscript a cover letter clearly stating the name of their preferred journal (e.g. BMC Genomics) to the EasyChair website. A second choice may also be listed.

In the cover letter, the corresponding author should provide full contact details: complete mailing address, telephone and fax contact numbers and e-mail address(es). The corresponding author must certify that the work submitted is original and has not been submitted elsewhere for publication. Furthermore, if accepted, the corresponding author must agree to pay in full, the stipulated article processing charges as well as reformat the accepted version of the manuscript in accordance with the journal requirements and upload the final version of the manuscript to EasyChair by the stipulated deadline.

At least one author of any accepted manuscript must register for InCoB2016, duly settle registration fees and make an oral presentation.

The corresponding author should certify that no part of the manuscript has been reproduced from another copyrighted source without permission or proper attribution, or has been inappropriately used, in order to avoid possible plagiarism or self-plagiarism issues.

We recommend watching an ACS Publications (American Chemical Society) video (http://pubs.acs.org/page/publish-research/episode-5.html).

We further recommend that the authors kindly check the originality of their manuscript using any standard online anti-plagiarism software tool.

Example Template Declaration to be included in the cover letter.
“We, the Authors collectively and individually declare that to our best ability, we have ensured that the submission made herein, including the main paper, supplementary data, deposited data, database entries, software code, does not contain any plagiarized material, content or ideas, and that all necessary attributions have been appropriately made and all copyright permissions obtained, cited and acknowledged.”

In addition, the covering letter should address the following five questions:

  • What scientific /methodological problem has been addressed?
  • Which recently published work (preferably within 12 months) is related to the scientific/methodological problem addressed in the submitted paper.
  • Which reported findings are crucial to solve the problem?
  • Are these findings novel?
  • What impact does the reported finding have on the subject area as well as among the wider community of biological and biomedical researchers?

We reserve the right to return manuscripts that do not correspond with the prescribed format of the selected journal without review.

If not well suited for publication in the preferred journal, the authors may be offered the opportunity to transfer the manuscript to consideration in another journal.

The cover letter should be uploaded as a PDF, Word or Text file to EasyChair using the File text box in the Upload paper section.

COLLABORATING JOURNALS
BMC Journals:
BMC Genomics (IF 4.04) considers all aspects of genome-scale analysis, functional genomics, proteomics, “big data” and “giga” science.
[Instructions for authors][Research article][Database][Methodology article][Software]

BMC Medical Genomics (IF 3.91) considers articles on all aspects of functional genomics, genome structure, genome-scale population genetics, epigenomics, proteomics, systems analysis, and pharmacogenomics in relation to human health and disease.
[Instructions for authors][Research article][Case report][Database article][Software article][Technical advance][Study protocol]

BMC Systems Biology (IF 2.85) considers articles on experimental and theoretical aspects of the function of biological systems at the molecular, cellular or organismal level, in particular those addressing the engineering of biological systems, network modeling, quantitative analyses and the integration of different levels of information.
[Instructions for authors][Research article][Database][Methodology article][Software]

BMC Bioinformatics (IF 2.67) considers all aspects of the development, testing and novel application of computational and statistical methods for the modeling and analysis of all kinds of biological data, as well as other areas of computational biology.
[Instructions for authors][Research article][Database][Methodology article][Software]

Please read the descriptions of each of the article types, choose which is appropriate for your work and structure the manuscript accordingly. If in doubt, your manuscript should be formatted as a Research article.

Please create a single PDF file for review using the BMC Microsoft manuscript template (Mac and Windows compatible; Microsoft Word 98/2000) or TeX/LaTeX template, containing the complete manuscript including references, tables and figure legends and all figures (one per page). A ZIP compressed file containing this PDF and additional files, if any should be uploaded to EasyChair, using the attachment upload utility in the upload paper section.

Accepted papers will be collectively published in the respective BMC journal InCoB2016 supplement issue.Article-processing charges (APC) might be discounted, depending on negotiations with BioMed Central. However, for conference supplements, institutional or developing country discounts are not available.

The InCoB 2016 organizers will collect APC and transfer them in bulk to BioMed Central. For details and waivers see frequently asked questions about BioMed Central’s article-processing charges.

In the rare event of a manuscript being acceptable after review but authors’ choice of journal supplement has exceeded the number of articles we will seek the authors’ consent to transfer the accepted manuscript to another suitable journal supplement.

Other Collaborating Journal:
Journal of Bioinformatics and Computational Biology (IF 0.931) considers submissions in all areas of bioinformatics and computational biology.
[Instructions for authors][Word template][LaTex template]

Poster/Software/Technology/Methodology/Resource/Tool/Database Abstracts
Authors are required to select an appropriate template for their submission and follow the instructions given in the template files. Abstract submissions to EasyChair without the appropriate template or the wrong template will be deleted without review.

Each template contains an abstract page and a teaser page. The teaser page content will incorporated in the program booklet. Authors have up to 30 words for a scientific statement other than the title to attract attendees to their poster or demonstration, for example, “Flux balance analyses of XXX cells revealed increased epistasis among housekeeping genes. However, functionally related genes did not show an increase in interactions”.

The presenting/corresponding authors acknowledged that the work described in the abstract has not been published/accepted elsewhere prior to June 20, 2016.

If the abstract has been published or accepted for publication elsewhere before the submission deadline of June 20 2016, the authors must give at the end of the abstract the following information: Name of publication, website (if applicable), date and comments (e.g. differences between the two abstracts).

Prior to submission, all abstract authors must confirm they have read, understand and agree to the abstract submission rules and guidelines. The presenting/corresponding author confirms that each co-author has been informed of the abstract submission and has agreed to all information as it was submitted.

At least one author of each accepted abstract must register for InCoB2016, duly settle registration fees and present the poster or present the demonstration.


Highlights

We invite abstracts on high-impact, recent peer-reviewed journal papers (typically impact factor greater than 5) that have been published or accepted for publication after January 1, 2016 to submit an abstract indicating ‘highlight’ in the cover letter.
Evidence of publication or acceptance must be included in the submission.

Prior to submission, all abstract authors must confirm they have read, understood and agreed to the abstract submission rules and guidelines. The presenting/corresponding author confirms that each co-author has been informed of the abstract submission and has agreed to all information as it was submitted.

At least one author of each accepted abstract must register for InCoB2016, duly settle registration fees and present the poster, present the demonstration or highlights abstract.


Breakout Sessions
Breakout session will be allocated a conference session (one track in a parallel track format) of usually 1, 1.5, or 2 hours. Topics should be novel with little overlap with InCoB2016 session topics. We invite proposals ranging from standards, education, funding, and publishing to bioinformatics approaches covering complex diseases of interest and merit to conference participants. Session format should allow room change every 30 minutes.

Talks should not exceed 20 min and should be followed by 10 min discussion time, unless the format of the session is panel discussion.

To add value to participants and speakers, proposals (excluding panel discussion) that commit to peer-reviewed post-conference publications will be preferred.

Session organizers and speakers/panel members, who agree to participate, acknowledge that InCoB2016 does not provide any financial or in kind support for breakout sessions, including APBioNet travel grants.

Limited organizational support for example, access to EasyChair, room(s) and AV equipment will be provided.

  • Title and one A4 page summary including justification why the proposed topic is of relevance for InCoB2016 audience
  • Short description of prior experiences in organizing a workshop session

For talk based breakout sessions:

  • Names of speakers, including affiliation and email address
  • Tentative title of talks and 3-5 lines of content description
  • Proof that proposed speakers agree to participate and s/he will cover registration fee and travel/accommodation cost, and any author processing fees if the proposal is successful.

For panel discussion based breakout sessions:

  • Names, affiliation and email addresses of panelists
  • Name, affiliation and email address of moderator
  • Proof that proposed panel member/moderator agree to participate and s/he will cover registration fee, and travel/accommodation cost if the proposal is successful.

Submit your proposal as a ZIP file via Easychair.
Re-submissions are allowed within one week of proposal upload.

Submissions will be evaluated by program committee members to eliminate overlap with regular session topics, merit and interest for InCoB2016 audience, quality and completeness of the submitted proposal, prior experience of the proposers in organizing a breakout session or a conference, and potential to stimulate active discussion and interest in the AMBIS and APBioNet communities.