Highlights from the Third International Society for Computational Biology ( ISCB ) Student Council Symposium at the Fifteenth Annual International Conference on Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology ( ISMB ) Vienna , Austria 21 July 2007

In this meeting report we give an overview of the 3 International Society for Computational Biology Student Council Symposium. Furthermore, we explain the role of the Student Council and the symposium series in the context of large, international conferences. Introduction: The Student Council of the International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB) is a student-led, worldwide network of young researchers in computational biology and bioinformatics. The ISCB Board of Directors officially approved the Student Council in July 2004 at the joint European Conference on Computational Biology (ECCB) and Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology (ISMB) conference in Glasgow, Scotland. The major aims of the Student Council are to organize events and facilitate networking opportunities for Student Council members while nurturing soft skills to complement the normal academic program, such as organizational, teamwork and networking skills. Since its inception, the Student Council has organized an annual student symposium for the benefit of the student community in the field of computational biology and bioinformatics. This year the 3rd ISCB Student Council Symposium was held in Vienna on 21 July, again as a satellite meeting of the joint conference ISMB/ECCB 2007 [1], with the participation of over 110 delegates. Several distinguished scientists were invited to the symposium, including Janet Thornton (European Bioinformatics Institute) who presented the opening keynote on ‘‘Comparative Functional Genomics of Ageing’’ and Anna Tramontano (University of Rome, La Sapienza) who gave a keynote lecture on the ‘‘Advances and Pitfalls of Structural Bioinformatics’’. ISCB Vice President Reinhard Schneider (European Molecular Biology Laboratory) delivered the closing remarks. For students and young scientists it is crucial to be aware of the directions in which the field is moving to make the right career decisions. The symposium addressed this challenge by providing two different perspectives on bioinformatics: During two presentation sessions and a poster session student delegates were given the opportunity to learn about the latest research of their peers. Another, more comprehensive, view on the development of the field was provided through aforementioned keynote lectures and a panel discussion on "The Future of Bioinformatics" moderated by Thomas Lengauer (Max Planck Institute for Informatics). Several accomplished senior scientists were on the panel, namely Rita Casadio (University of Bologna), Tan Tin Wee (National University of Singapore), Janet Thornton (European Bioinformatics Institute) and Anna Tramontano (University of Rome, La Sapienza). The discussion was highly interactive, providing delegates with the opportunity to actively contribute and to ask questions. In addition, attendees were able to learn first-hand about personal experiences of some of the scientists that have shaped the field of computational biology. Proceedings summary: The goal of the proceedings of the symposium is to present a selection of the best abstracts selected from a total of 69 submissions. The abstracts that have been selected for this supplement comprise 6 abstracts chosen for oral presentation plus the abstracts of the 8 best-rated posters. Two rounds of rigorous peer-review were carried out by members of the program committee, which was comprised of an international group of students and young researchers. The first round included review and rating of every abstract by at least 2 program committee members, from which the top 25 abstracts were chosen for the second round. The second round consisted in re-scoring of the top 25 abstracts by 4 experienced members of the program committee to identify BioMed Central