VISUALIZING BIOLOGICAL DATA VIZBI

In case you missed it: this showreel video highlights some of the stunning work presented at last year’s VIZBI meeting. A showreel video for 2023 is coming soon.

A few quick updates on VIZBI 2023: (1) If you’re thinking of joining the onsite meeting in Heidelberg, the extended deadline for registration is next Tuesday, Feb 21; (2) There’s still time to have your work featured at VIZBI 2023: submissions for posters, artwork, and the VR Exhibit remain open until Mar 6; (3) You can read a quick summary of the workshop highlights in EMBL’s recent blog post: ‘VIZBI 2023: where science and art meet’.

VIZBI 2023 will feature a VR exhibit of life science-themed apps and games using emerging display technologies (e.g., virtual or augmented reality devices). If you have content you would like to include in the exhibit, please send us details using this Google Form. You can also participate by using Schol-AR to augment your poster or artwork. In addition to the exhibit, VIZBI speakers Emmanuel Reynaud and Nadia Magnenat-Thalmann will showcase the use of new display devices in life science research.

Just prior to the VIZBI workshop there will be an online-only Data Visualization Masterclass. This event is focused on practical techniques for creating insightful visual representations of complex data, and for creating compelling visualizations for communication. This is an opportunity to learn from four leading DataVis practitioners: Seán O’Donoghue, Christian Stolte, Ivan Viola, and Barbora Kozlíková. The Masterclass runs over two half-days (Monday and Tuesday, March 27-28), from 14:00-18:00 CET. Register now to be part of the VIZBI Masterclass.

The VIZBI 2023 keynote on human-computer interaction will be given by Arzu Çöltekin, who is a professor of Human-Computer Interaction, Visualization, and Extended Reality at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland (FHNW). She is also a research affiliate at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, USA.
Arzu’s research interests span many fields, including information science, visual analytics, cartography, extended reality, and HCI. Register now to hear Arzu’s talk.

Need help augmenting your VIZBI poster or artwork with interactive content (videos, image stacks, 3D models, or volumetric data)? Join the Zoom meeting on Feb. 7, 2023, 6:00pm (CET) with Tyler Ard, creator of Schol-AR. He will demonstrate the process and answer questions. To get details on how to join the meeting, sign-up on Eventbrite.

The Art & Biology keynote for VIZBI 2023 will be given by Martin Dohrn, an Emmy award-winning producer of natural history films. Martin has pioneered methods that reveal aspects of the natural world never seen before, such as stunning bioluminescence displays. His ground-breaking films include Mara Nights, Killer Ants, Night of the Lion, and David Attenborough’s Light on Earth. His latest film (My Garden of a Thousand Bees) has won many international awards. Register now to hear Martin’s talk.

We are excited to have professor Stefan Bruckner as one of the VIZBI 2023 keynote speakers! Stefan’s research focuses on interactive exploratory visual analysis of large, heterogeneous datasets. His many significant contributions include novel methods for illustrative visualization, volume rendering, smart visual interfaces, biomedical data visualization, and visual parameter space exploration. Register now to be part of VIZBI 2023 and to hear Stefan’s talk.

We’re delighted to share the poster for the EMBO Workshop on ‘Visualizing Biological Data’ (VIZBI 2023), which takes place March 2023 at EMBL in Heidelberg, Germany. The poster summarises the speaker line-up and program, and is available in low-res and hi-res versions. Feel free to share with colleagues, or put up on your departmental noticeboard. We hope very much you can join us in March – in-person or online – for VIZBI 2023!

The artwork selected by VIZBI 2022 delegates for the best Art and Biology award was FUNGIble tokens by Leonora Martínez-Nunez (​​UMASS medical school, USA). Leonora will receive a cash prize of $250 dollars, a PeerJ publication fee-waiver, and have their work showcased on the PeerJ Blog.

Based on popular vote from VIZBI 2022 delegates, the Best Scientific Poster Award goes to Mol Mir, Stephanie Nowotarski, and Alejandro Sánchez Alvarado (Stowers Institute & HHMI, USA) for their poster Using illustration as a primer for interpreting cellular EM data. They will receive a cash prize of $250 dollars, a PeerJ publication fee-waiver and have their work showcased on the PeerJ Blog.

We’re pleased to introduce Dagmara Kaczynska, who’ll be covering VIZBI 2022 on twitter, and here at the VIZBI blog.

Dagmara works at Cancer Research KI in Stockholm, Sweden, focusing on science communication and outreach. She obtained her PhD on 3D imaging and quantitative analysis of intact tissues and organs at Karolinska Institutet.

Follow Dagmara on twitter

VIZBI 2022 starts in 7 days and we’re looking forward to unveiling yet another spectacular collection of scientific posters and Art of Biology images next week. If you have not yet uploaded your abstract, poster image, and lightning talk video, you have until the end of this week (11th March).

We are once again proud to partner with PeerJ, who will award the two most popular scientific posters with a fee waiver for publication, and be interviewed for the PeerJ Blog.

The deadline for VIZBI 2022 discounted early-bird registration has now been extended to 11pm PST on Wednesday, March 2. The deadline for uploading a poster or art & biology submission has also been extended to 11pm PST on Friday, March 11.

​​Early-bird registration for VIZBI 2022 closes February 28. The VIZBI virtual conference will take place March 16-18, bringing together researchers, designers, and science communicators using visualization methods with data from all areas of biology and biomedicine. The meeting features keynotes from Ben Fry, Bongshin Lee, Helen Berman, and David Goodsell, plus 18 plenary talks covering visualization methods and tools being used to address cutting-edge data challenges across the life sciences. All participants have the opportunity to present their work via an online poster and lightning-talk video. Additionally, a pre-conference event provides training in visualization methods from leading experts, including Martin Kryzwinkski and Drew Berry.

The artwork selected by VIZBI 2021 delegates as runner-up for the Art and Biology award was The Human Heart by Philipp Dexheimer from IMP Vienna Biocenter, Austria. Philipp receives a 1 year subscription to the clarifi resource from Digizyme.