About the ISB
Administrative Organization
The ISB Executive Committee is composed of:
- Chairperson: Pascale Gaudet, Scientific Manager, Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, Switzerland
- Secretary: Lorna Richardson, Biocurator, Medical Research Council Human Genetics Unit, UK
- Treasurer: Marc Robinson-Rechavi, Team Leader, Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, Switzerland
- Teresa Attwood, Professor of Bioinformatics, University of Manchester, UK
- Alex Bateman, Senior Investigator, Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, UK
- J. Michael Cherry, Associate Professor (Research), Stanford University, USA
- Renate Kania, Research associate, Scientific Database and Visualisation group at the Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical Studies (HITS), Germany
- Claire O'Donovan, UniProt, European Bioinformatics Institute, UK
- Chisato Yamasaki, Database curator, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Japan
- Lydie Bougueleret, Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, Switzerland. Treasurer 2009-2010
- Tanya Berardini, The Carnegie Institute for Science, USA Secretary 2010-2011
- Tadashi Imanishi, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Japan. Executive Committee member 2009-2011
- Owen White, University of Maryland School of Medicine, USA. Executive Committee member 2009-2010
- Ioannis Xenarios, Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, Switzerland. Executive Committee member 2009-2011
Previous members of the ISB Executive Committee
Mission
The mission of the International Society for Biocuration is to:
- Help define the profession of biocuration with respect to the scientfic community and the granting agencies.
- Provide a forum for biocurators, and interested developers, researchers, and students to exchange experience and ideas. The current website, biocurator.org, will be extended to provide user profiles, including databases, research interests, and curation expertise.
- Organize regular conference where biocurators present their work and discuss their scholarly efforts.
- Lobby to obtain increased and stable funding for resources that are essential to research.
- Build a relationship with publishers and establish a link between researchers and databases through the journal publishers.
- Organize workshops where new biocurators, or interested students can be trained in the use of common tools such as the Gene Ontology, Genotype and Phenotype curation, GMOD tools, etc..
- Provide documentation on the use of common database tools.
- Provide gold standards for databases, such as the use of unique, traceable identifiers, use of shared tools, etc..
- Share documentation on standards, annotation procedures with the aim of developing standard operating procedures.
- Foster connections with user communities to ensure that the databases and accompanying tools meet specific user needs.
- Maintain a biocurator job market forum.
Constitution and white paper for the ISB
The ISB constitution is available in PDF format in English or in French. The white paper for the ISB can also be viewed online.
Governance Guidelines
Following are the guidelines for the governance of the International Society for Biocuration approved by the Executive Committee as mentioned in the Constitution. The guidelines can be modified by proposition of a member of the Executive Committee and do not need to be accepted by the general assembly. These guidelines are available to all the Society members. Governance Guidelines (pdf) (updated May 28, 2010)
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the Biocurator Society Planning Committee for their time and effort to bring this society to life: Amos Bairoch, Deb Boswell, Lydie Bougueleret, Maria Costanzo, Rex Chisholm, Harold Drabkin, Shuchismita Dutta, Petra Fey, Pascale Gaudet, Linda Hannick, Doug Howe, Renate Kania, Philippe Lamesch, Lydie Lane, Suzanna Lewis, Pete McQuilton, Michele Magrane, Kim Pruitt, Lorna Richardson, Mary Shimoyama, and Monte Westerfield. Our special thanks go to Phillippe Lamesch for the logo design, Amelia Ireland and Warren Kibbe for creating the website, and Petra Fey for coordinating this work.