VISUALIZING BIOLOGICAL DATA VIZBI

The poster upload deadline has now been extended until on 23:00 ETD on March 14, 2018. Note that the link for uploading your poster is sent after you register for the conference with Eventbrite. Click here for more details.

Due to network interruptions, we have now extended the deadline for the early registration discount to February 28. After this date, all conference tickets increase by $150. Note that the poster upload deadline has also been extended to March 7.

The VIZBI 2018 program is now online: this year’s meeting at the Broad Institute features keynotes on user experience design, visual communication of biology, and data visualization principles from Kim Goodwin, Drew Berry, and Anders Ynnerman. In addition, talks from 18 leading researchers will review how data visualization is being used to transform key areas of research in the life sciences. Sign up soon to take advantage of the early registration discount, which closes February 23.

VIZBI 2018, the 9th international meeting on ‘Visualizing Biological Data’, will take place March 28-30 at the Broad Institute of MIT & Harvard in Cambridge MA.

VIZBI 2018 features keynotes from Kim Goodwin, Drew Berry, and Anders Ynnerman, as well as talks from 18 world-leading researchers showcasing visualizations transforming how life scientists view data, and driving key advances in molecular biology, systems biology, biomedical science, and ecology.

The meeting aims to advance data visualization in the life sciences and brings together a diverse community, including bioinformaticians, data scientists, computer scientists, and experimentalists, as well as medical illustrators, graphic designers, and graphic artists.

All participants have the opportunity to present a poster and a lightning talk describing their work. Note that this year we are not able to offer a virtual participation option.

Data Visualization Masterclass. One day prior to the meeting (March 27), there will also be full-day training event teaching general principles and practices for turning data into insightful visualisations. Further details will be announced shortly.

Sponsorship. If you are interested in promoting your organization or professional society, a range of sponsorship options are also available.

As with previous meetings, VIZBI 2018 promises to be an exciting event that will again help raise the standard of data visualization in the life sciences. We hope very much you can join us!

In an article published today, VIZBI founders Sean O’Donoghue (CSIRO, Garvan & UNSW, Australia) and James Procter (University of Dundee, UK) outline why they created the meeting series. In short: they were motivated from their experiences in using data visualisation principles to create bioinformatics tools. The article appeared in The Conversation, which publishes news sourced from researchers, and allows articles to be freely accessed and republished.

In response to several requests, the deadline for uploading a scientific posters or art & biology submission has been extended to June 4, 23:59 PST. To find the upload link, please see the email sent to you confirming your registration.

We are pleased to announce that – as with previous years – Autodesk have agreed to sponsor a prize for the most visually compelling and original ‘Art & Biology’ submission. Each VIZBI participant is invited to upload one artistically-inspired image, which will be featured on the VIZBI poster gallery. The award winner will receive a one-year subscription to Autodesk Maya (valued at $1,825 CAD). Maya is widely-used for creating interactive 3D applications, video games, animated film, TV series, and visual effects. The prize is offered to participants from academics and industry alike, but cannot be resold. The Art & Biology entries will be unveiled during the Art & Biology evening on Thursday, June 15, and the winner will be announced on June 16 during the closing session. For details see the VIZBI 2017 poster page. The deadline for upload is May 31 at 23:59 CET.

Tamara Munzner will be a keynote speaker at VIZBI 2017 (Sydney, 14-16 June); she has worked on visualization projects in a broad range of application domains, including genomics, evolutionary biology, geometric topology, computational linguistics, large-scale system administration, web log analysis, and journalism.

Tamara was also a keynote speaker at VIZBI 2011 (Broad Institute of MIT & Harvard, USA), where she presented lucid and very useful guidelines for creating effective visualizations. She highlighted the advantages of 2D representation – compared with 3D, immersive, or animated visualizations – and described methods to reduce the viewer’s cognitive load, and to validate visualizations. A video of Tamara’s 2011 keynote can be viewed here.

We are pleased to announce that – as with previous years – NVIDIA have agreed to sponsor a generous prize for the poster that best exemplifies the use of data visualization to gain clear, compelling insight into an important scientific problem. The award winner will receive a Quadro M6000 card, one of the world’s most powerful GPUs, making real-time photorealistic rendering possible for even complex scenes. It can drive up to four 4K displays simultaneously, and its 3,072 CUDA cores make it perfect for many scientific applications. To upload your poster, use the submission link in your VIZBI registration email. Accepted posters will be published in the VIZBI poster gallery. The deadline for upload is May 31 at 23:59 CET.

In case you missed it: VIZBI 2016 (in Heidelberg, Germany) was featured in a Nature News article that examined how the right visualization can transform a biologists’ understanding of their data. Read the full article here.

With seven tutorials plus the Data Visualization Masterclass, you are spoilt for choice:

Morning:

• Variant Data, Alignments, Structures and Jalview (Geoff Barton & Jim Procter)
• Exploratory Visual and Computational Genomic Data Analysis with Epiviz (Hector Corrado-Brava)
• Learn Data Visualization in R: a Hands-on Journey Through the Do’s and Don’ts of Effective Graphmanship (Nenad Bartonicek)
• Integrating Compelling Narrative and Storytelling into your DataViz (Paul Hodge)

Afternoon:

• Protein Network Visualization with Cytoscape and STRING (Lars Juhl Jensen & Jessica Xin Hu)
• Visualization of Complex Microbial Data Using ETE, A Python Framework for the Analysis and Visualization of Trees (Mostafa Ellabaan)
• Analysis of Atomic Force Microscopy Data from Biological Samples (Siobhan Braybrook)

All-day:

• Data Visualization Masterclass (Tamara Munzner, Daniel Keim, Seán O’Donoghue, Christopher Hammang, Julian Heinrich, & Christian Stolte)

Note that early registration for VIZBI 2017 closes April 21, 23:59 CET. To secure your ticket before prices rise, go to the VIZBI registration page.

We are excited to share that BioVis 2017 will be part of the ISMB/ECCB 2017 conference held on July 24 in Prague, Czech Republic. The BioVis meetings aim to educate, inspire, and engage bioinformatics and biology researchers in state-of-the-art visualization research and visualization researchers in problems in biological data visualisation. Find out how to participate at: http://biovis.net/2017/cfp_ismb/.

The BioVis and VIZBI meetings are quite complimentary: BioVis
features a full paper track – typical for computer science meetings – while
the VIZBI lacks a paper track, instead having a format more typical for meetings in the life sciences.

We are pleased to announce the complete speaker lineup for VIZBI 2017. These 21 world-leading researchers will showcase visualizations transforming how life scientists view data.

Keynotes: Daniel Keim, Drew Berry, Tamara Munzner. DNA: Christian Stolte, Hector Corrada Bravo, Jim Zheng. RNA: Yue Wan, David Powell, Davis McCarthy. Proteins: Jane Richardson, Alexander Rose, Michael Landsberg. Cells: Brenda Andrews, Sean Humphrey, Lars Juhl Jensen. Tissues: Siobhan Braybrook, John McGhee, Caroline Rae. Populations: Aaron Darling, Elena Naumova, David Raubenheimer.

Some of you may have had difficulties accessing the VIZBI website, due to recent server problems that are now fixed. As a result, we have extended the deadline for early registration to April 21. If you continue to experience difficulties accessing VIZBI.org, please contact us.

In case you are considering proposing a tutorial for VIZBI, you now have more time, as we are extending the deadline. Proposal submissions will now close on Friday, 31 March 2017, at 23:59 Pacific time (PST). Please visit the VIZBI 2017 tutorial page for details.

With VIZBI 2017 still two months away, there’s still time to fit in another biological visualisation meeting before coming to Sydney!

On 20th-21st April, BiVi – the UK Biological Visualisation Community will have its 3rd Annual General Meeting at Napier University, Edinburgh, UK.

The BiVi AGM is a two day meeting funded by the UK’s Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, and the only regular meeting for UK based tool developers and researchers working in biological visualisation. This year there will be keynotes from Jean Luc Doumont, Marc Streit and Bang Wong, and seven talks from researchers developing biological visualisation systems. Participants can also present posters and lightning talks, and sign up for hands on workshops on the second day. Registration also includes an evening reception, and student bursaries are available.

For more information see the 3rd BiVi AGM meeting page

There is an open position for a Biomedical Animator working with Drew Berry at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research in Melbourne, Australia. ‘Think of the smallest thing you can draw. Now think smaller. If you can visualise how one cell communicates with another, or how a parasite invades its host, and are able to use animation software to bring these processes to life for others, this is an opportunity for you.’ More info at http://www.wehi.edu.au/biomedical-animation-fellow.

This year, the Autodesk Art and Biology Award went to Jasmin Imran Alsous for Picasso’s Bulls and Drosophila’s Eggs. This submission highlights a connection between one of Picasso’s artworks and modern techniques used for processing biological image data. The Autodesk award is for the most popular VIZBI Art and Biology submission, and the winner receives a three-year subscription to Autodesk Maya. Well done Jasmin!

Benedetta Frida Baldi’s talk on ‘Novel approaches to modelling protein-protein interactions in biological space’ won the inaugural Fourmentin-Guilbert Foundation Award for Best Lightning Talk, based on popular vote by VIZBI 2016 participants. Benedetta explained protein interactions using a choreographed dance routine; she received a cash prize of €1,500 from the Fourmentin-Guilbert Foundation.