The ISCB: Growing and Evolving in Step with Science

n 1993, the Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology conference was successfully launched as an annual meeting for scientific exchange within the nascent interdisciplinary science of computational biology. Demand grew stronger each year for an umbrella organization that extended its reach beyond a once-a-year conference. The International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB) was formed in 1997 to provide computational biologists and bioinformaticians worldwide with a community of peers with whom they could interact year-round in their mutual quest to advance the understanding of living systems through computation. Over the past 13 years, the ISCB has grown and evolved along with the fields of computational biology and bioinformatics. As the society's president, I am proud to report that our membership now comprises nearly 2,000 members in over 50 countries.