Global network of computational biology communities: ISCB's regional student groups breaking barriers [version 1; peer review: Not peer reviewed]

Regional Student Groups (RSGs) of the International Society for Computational Biology Student Council (ISCB-SC) have been instrumental to connect computational biologists globally and to create more awareness about bioinformatics education. This article highlights the initiatives carried out by the RSGs both nationally and internationally to strengthen the present and future of the bioinformatics community. Moreover, we discuss the future directions the organization will take and the challenges to advance further in the ISCB-SC main mission: “Nurture the new generation of computational biologists”.Fil: Shome, Sayane. University of Iowa; Estados UnidosFil: Parra, Rodrigo Gonzalo. European Molecular Biology Laboratory; Alemania. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Fatima, Nazeefa. Uppsala Universitet; SueciaFil: Monzon, Alexander Miguel. Università di Padova; ItaliaFil: Cuypers, Bart. Universiteit Antwerp; BélgicaFil: Moosa, Yumna. University of KwaZulu Natal; SudáfricaFil: Da Rocha Coimbra, Nilson. Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais; BrasilFil: Assis, Juliana. Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais; BrasilFil: Giner Delgado, Carla. Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona; EspañaFil: Dönertaş, Handan Melike. European Molecular Biology Laboratory. European Bioinformatics Institute; Reino UnidoFil: Cuesta Astroz, Yesid. Universidad de Antioquia; Colombia. Universidad Ces. Facultad de Medicina.; ColombiaFil: Saarunya, Geetha. University of South Carolina; Estados UnidosFil: Allali, Imane. Universite Mohammed V. Rabat; Otros paises de África. University of Cape Town; SudáfricaFil: Gupta, Shruti. Jawaharlal Nehru University; IndiaFil: Srivastava, Ambuj. Indian Institute of Technology Madras; IndiaFil: Kalsan, Manisha. Jawaharlal Nehru University; IndiaFil: Valdivia, Catalina. Universidad Andrés Bello; ChileFil: Olguín Orellana, Gabriel José. Universidad de Talca; ChileFil: Papadimitriou, Sofia. Vrije Unviversiteit Brussel; Bélgica. Université Libre de Bruxelles; BélgicaFil: Parisi, Daniele. Katholikie Universiteit Leuven; BélgicaFil: Kristensen, Nikolaj Pagh. Technical University of Denmark; DinamarcaFil: Rib, Leonor. Universidad de Copenhagen; DinamarcaFil: Guebila, Marouen Ben. University of Luxembourg; LuxemburgoFil: Bauer, Eugen. University of Luxembourg; LuxemburgoFil: Zaffaroni, Gaia. University of Luxembourg; LuxemburgoFil: Bekkar, Amel. Universite de Lausanne; SuizaFil: Ashano, Efejiro. APIN Public Health Initiatives; NigeriaFil: Paladin, Lisanna. Università di Padova; ItaliaFil: Necci, Marco. Università di Padova; ItaliaFil: Moreyra, Nicolás Nahuel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Ecología, Genética y Evolución de Buenos Aires. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Ecología, Genética y Evolución de Buenos Aires; Argentin

The SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics' resources: focus on curated databases

The SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics (www.isb-sib.ch) provides world-class bioinformatics databases, software tools, services and training to the international life science community in academia and industry. These solutions allow life scientists to turn the exponentially growing amount of data into knowledge. Here, we provide an overview of SIB's resources and competence areas, with a strong focus on curated databases and SIB's most popular and widely used resources. In particular, SIB's Bioinformatics resource portal ExPASy features over 150 resources, including UniProtKB/Swiss-Prot, ENZYME, PROSITE, neXtProt, STRING, UniCarbKB, SugarBindDB, SwissRegulon, EPD, arrayMap, Bgee, SWISS-MODEL Repository, OMA, OrthoDB and other databases, which are briefly described in this article

Predicting combinations of immunomodulators to enhance dendritic cell-based vaccination based on a hybrid experimental and computational platform

Dendritic cell (DC)-based vaccines have been largely used in the adjuvant setting for the treatment of cancer, however, despite their proven safety, clinical outcomes still remain modest. In order to improve their efficacy, DC-based vaccines are often combined with one or multiple immunomodulatory agents. However, the selection of the most promising combinations is hampered by the plethora of agents available and the unknown interplay between these different agents. To address this point, we developed a hybrid experimental and computational platform to predict the effects and immunogenicity of dual combinations of stimuli once combined with DC vaccination, based on the experimental data of a variety of assays to monitor different aspects of the immune response after a single stimulus. To assess the stimuli behavior when used as single agents, we first developed an in vitro co-culture system of T cell priming using monocyte-derived DCs loaded with whole tumor lysate to prime autologous peripheral blood mononuclear cells in the presence of the chosen stimuli, as single adjuvants, and characterized the elicited response assessing 18 different phenotypic and functional traits important for an efficient anti-cancer response. We then developed and applied a prediction algorithm, generating a ranking for all possible dual combinations of the different single stimuli considered here. The ranking generated by the prediction tool was then validated with experimental data showing a strong correlation with the predicted scores, confirming that the top ranked conditions globally significantly outperformed the worst conditions. Thus, the method developed here constitutes an innovative tool for the selection of the best immunomodulatory agents to implement in future DC-based vaccines.status: publishe

Global network of computational biology communities : ISCB's regional student groups breaking barriers [version 1; peer review: Not peer reviewed]

Regional Student Groups (RSGs) of the International Society for Computational Biology Student Council (ISCB-SC) have been instrumental to connect computational biologists globally and to create more awareness about bioinformatics education. This article highlights the initiatives carried out by the RSGs both nationally and internationally to strengthen the present and future of the bioinformatics community. Moreover, we discuss the future directions the organization will take and the challenges to advance further in the ISCB-SC main mission: "Nurture the new generation of computational biologists"

Global network of computational biology communities

Regional Student Groups (RSGs) of the International Society for Computational Biology Student Council (ISCB-SC) have been instrumental to connect computational biologists globally and to create more awareness about bioinformatics education. This article highlights the initiatives carried out by the RSGs both nationally and internationally to strengthen the present and future of the bioinformatics community. Moreover, we discuss the future directions the organization will take and the challenges to advance further in the ISCB-SC main mission: “Nurture the new generation of computational biologists”.PubMedScopu