Call for Proposals to host the 2027 International Biocuration Conference.

Dear Colleagues,

The Executive Committee of the International Society for Biocuration (ISB) is pleased to open the call to host the 20th International Biocuration Conference in Asia/Oceania, preferably during April or May 2027, though nearby dates may also be considered.

Individuals and organizations interested in applying may do so by sending a proposal to the ISB Executive Committee (intsocbio@gmail.com) on or before August 31st, 2025. 

The successful bidder will be notified by October 1st, 2025. The ISB Executive Committee will publicly announce the selected organization or individuals during the Annual General Meeting held virtually in October.

Format

Interested individuals or organizations are invited to submit their application via the following form:
Application to Host Biocuration Conference 2027

Applicants may later be asked to provide further details about the proposed venue, proposed dates, strategies for broad community engagement and fair gender representation, and more.

In a continued effort to bring our meeting to curators in all geographic regions, we encourage ISB members across the Asia/Oceania region to put forward proposals to bring the ISB meeting to your region once again, or for the first time!

REGIONS ROTATION: 

  • North and South America
  • Europe and Africa
  • Asia and Oceania

For more information about the ISB and our previous conferences, please visit http://www.biocuration.org.

Your colleagues at the ISB Executive Committee.

Biocuration Community Survey 2025

This survey aims to gather and analyze information about the field of biocuration.

This survey is being conducted by the International Society for Biocuration (ISB) to identify potential gaps or inequities among biocurators and to identify areas where the ISB may be able to take actions to improve awareness of biocuration.

This is a follow-up with our community to assess the progress made since the we began surveying the community in 2017. The results from past surveys are available here: https://www.biocuration.org/dissemination/survey-results/ (see ISB Career Description Survey Results).  

The resulting data will be aggregated and analyzed and shared with the community. No identifying information will be revealed in reporting results of this survey.

Thank you for your participation. The survey will close Friday, March 28th, 2025

Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Accessibility Officer

The International Society for Biocuration (ISB) is committed to working to build an inclusive and diverse network of biocurators, ontologists, data stewards and others who work to improve the quality of data wherever they may work. The EDI subcommittee has worked hard to establish a set of guidelines to promote equity, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility for the society. With these guidelines in place and with the difficulty in maintaining an active committee in the past year the executive committee has decided to establish an Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Accessibility Officer. 

This officer will be charged with:

  1. Acting as a point person for ISB members to communicate EDIA concerns.
  2. Reviewing applications for Biocuration conference organizers for any EDIA concerns.
  3. Working with the Biocuration conference liaison to ensure the annual conference is following EDIA guidelines.
  4. Acting as a point person to think ahead for any potential EDIA blindspots.

The past few years have seen the first Biocuration conference in India (2024), the first fully hybrid Biocuration conference (2025), and plans for the first Biocuration conference in Africa (2026). We fund travel fellowships to enable curators from low-income countries to attend Biocuration conferences, We have increased the number of available microgrants and inclusivity grants available to members this year to two of each type. We have also revised and updated our guidelines for conference organizers.

We thank Mary Ann Tuli and the members of the EDI committee for their tireless work over the years to guide the society policies to where they are now.

We thank Luana Licata for volunteering to be the inaugural EDIA Officer!

Archived Data Sets

Last week saw a flurry of messages about how to find archived data sets. This is the list of resources and links from those messages. The bulk of this list came from the Data Rescue Project (@datarescue2025.bsky.social) that was shared by Melissa Haendel. Please check the Data Rescue Project page for new updates. The Data Rescue Project now has a homepage https://www.datarescueproject.org/about-data-rescue-project/

Larger and Established Data / Website Efforts

End of Term Crawl 

  • The main coordinated effort to archive websites
  • Datasets have been more of a challenge, especially data embedded in databases.

EDGI

Public Environmental Data Project 

Harvard’s LIbrary Innovation Lab Team

ICPSR

  • Overview of ICPSR’s data rescue activities to date:
    • Downloaded ~2800 files from various sources requested by researchers; all the files ICPSR collected will soon be available via a dropbox link.
    • Examining CDC data dump from archive.org to assess what might be missing.
      • Ideally will also be a resource for those looking for data to see what is/isn’t available.
    • ICPSR staff and allies are generating metadata for each of the datasets we have so that we can make them available through an existing archive at ICPSR (DataLumos, openICPSR, or the Resource Center for Minority Data, depending on our timeline and some technical issues we’re working out)
  • ICPSR Data Lumos – They have the older version of a lot of major data, including a recent addition from the CDC.

IPUMS

  • They have data and have been working on cataloging efforts
  • Notification went out yesterday that they will share more soon.

Dryad

  • Generalist repository available to help with data publication, storage, and preservation.

Synapse

  • Generalist biology and biomedical data repository available to help with data publication, storage, and preservation.

Silencing Science Tracker

  • Joint initiative of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law and the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund.
  • Tracks government attempts to restrict or prohibit scientific research, education or discussion, or the publication or use of scientific information.

OSF

  • Generalist repository for archiving, sharing, and storing all types of research outputs, not limited to preprints or only data.
  • OSF is available as an option for pre-prints of articles if, for some reason, they cannot be posted on official sources.
  • Many universities also have institutional repositories where research (articles, data, dissertations, etc) from that institution can be posted. They also have preservation mandates. An example is Penn’s ScholarlyCommons.

The Climate Mirror Project

  • Has NOAA data pulled during the 2017 data rescue.

Open Energy Data Initiative

  • A volunteer has pointed out that “key equity data” is missing from the Dept of Energy. Says they were able to find it on this site. Includes additional data from DOE.

Wayback Machine

Data Rescue Events

Smaller/Ad Hoc Rescue Efforts/ Data Archiving Activists

  • UCSB LSIT Data Mirroring
    • Mirrored and archived public data on locally hosted git server
    • Includes retrieved data sets from CDC, NIH, and NOAA
  • CDC Page on Internet Archive
    • A special archive created on IA of all CDC datasets publicly available as of January 28, 2025
    • uploaded by DataHoarders (we think)
  • Datasets in Dataverse
    • Data uploaded by the Climate Change and Health Research Coordinating Center (CAFE)
      • CAFE is looking for potentially non US based location to duplicate the contents of their collection
    • Includes CDC’s Social Vulnerability Index data.  
    • Most of what’s being placed here is data focusing on health and the environment.
    • DataRefuge from 2017 DataRefuge initiative can be opened for more deposits 
  • Safeguarding Research
    • Organizer is Henrik Schönemann; https://fedihum.org/@lavaeolus
    • There is a forum: https://safeguarding-research.discourse.group/ (admin = Henrik)
      • Based in EU, USA and global – got access to Update 1-2 PB (and more on the way) of storage & people willing to seed
      • Currently, we’ve got around 1TB of data backed up
        • Including >100.000 PDFs from academia.edu (“transgender”, “Queer Studies”, “intersex”, “nonbinary” etc. – see the forum for the full list)
        • 350GB web archive of CDC, including all 30.000 files from archive.cdc.gov And much more
        • “We’re working on providing a central index of archives, with metadata about who archived what, when, to be disseminated widely alongside torrent files and act as both a central point of coordination for archivers to assess what new work is needed, and a mass distribution channel.”
      • Possible contact to CERN, will update asap
  • Data Hoarder
    • A reddit community that is coordinating efforts to rescue data. 
  • Data Hoarding 
    • index of resources and archives related to data hoarding, web archival and self hosting. 
  • ArchiveTeam Warriors
    • They run a distributed crawler. Anyone can install it to help contribute.
    • US Federal Data page
    • Data is uploaded to Archive.org by volunteers
  • Data Liberation Project
    • Note: It looks like the project may have stalled in September 2024. Send info if you know more about them.
    • Run by BigLocalNews and MuckRock, which are good groups to follow.

Tools for Data Rescues

Library Guides to Data Rescues

Articles on current efforts

Articles for context

Existing Alternative Data Sources

Thanks to Brianne Dosch for suggesting the section and some of the bullets.

  • PolicyMap – offers a free tier that can be used to view basic information down to the tract-level, but more detailed data and functionality requires a subscription; available at some universities
  • FRED – They have some demographic data as well; free and open source
  • Census Reporter – is a free, open-source platform focused on making American Community Survey (ACS) data more accessible, including the recent upload of the 2022 1-Year ACS data
  • Esri – for mapping users, the GIS vendor publishes several U.S. Census Bureau data sets, including the ACS, through its ArcGIS Online Platform
  • IPUMS – Even when the government operates normally, many analysts turn to Minnesota Population Center products to access ACS, Current Population Survey microdata and Decennial Census data
  • Social Explorer – historical Census data and more; available at some universities
  • SimplyAnalytics – has internally processed American Community Surveys; available at some universities
  • American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists – Hosting copies of immunization schedules and contraceptive use guidance from the CDC
  • https://www.ebi.ac.uk/ena/browser/home – The European Nucleotide Archive (ENA) provides a comprehensive record of the world’s nucleotide sequencing information, covering raw sequencing data, sequence assembly information and functional annotation. Mirrors SRA public data

Economic Indicators 

  • National League of Cities: Federal Grant Navigation Equity Dashboard 
    • This tool aggregated data from many sources – it seems to still be able to categorize disadvantaged communities (by environmental and economic standards), as well as other critical data denotations that are increasingly hard to access 
  • ALICE Economic Vitality Dashboard and Report (2022 w/ 2024 update)
    • This resource specifically provides data on work, housing, and community resources for households below the ALICE threshold (Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed). The data is provided by the U.S. Census Bureau’s Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS, 202!) 
  • National Equity Atlas Dashboards
    • A data and policy tool that provides a detailed report card on racial and economic equity – this tool can provide a holistic Racial Equity Index snapchat of communities. The Atlas draws its data from a unique regional equity indicators database developed and maintained by two private institutions: PolicyLink and USC Equity Research Institute ERI.

Public Health 

  • County Health Rankings & Roadmaps (CHR&R)
    • A program of University of Wisconsin’s Population Health Institute, this data tool aims to highlight the symbiotic nature of health and equity by factoring in physical environment, social and economic indicators, clinical care, and health behaviors to health outcomes. 
      • They also recommend these additional health data platforms: 
  • City Health Dashboard
    • From NYU Langone Health, this platform provides 40+ measures of health and factors affecting health across five areas (Health Behaviors, Social and Economic Factors, Physical Environment, Health Outcomes, and Clinical Care) for 970+ cities across the U.S.

Biocuration 2025 Preliminary Schedule of Talks

Schedule of talks for April 7-9

DAY 1

Keynote: Tanya Berger-Wolf

Director of the Translational Data Analytics Institute, Director of Imageomics Institute, PI of AI and Biodiversity Change (ABC) Global Climate Center, Ohio State University.

Day 1, Session 1: Data Standards & Ontologies

  • Encouraging authors to use and cite data in public repositories; a publisher perspective.
    • Bastien Molcrette
    • Data Publications, Data Standards, Fair Data Principles, Public Data Resources
  • DO Spanish: enhancing DEI via a standardized workflow for translating ontology and website content
    • Lynn Schriml
    • Curation, Data Sharing, Disease, Ontologies
  • Harnessing Community Power for Long-Term Success of the Mondo Disease Ontology
    • Sabrina Toro
    • Curation, Data Standards, Disease, Ontologies
  • The Earth Metabolome Initiative Ontology  
    • Tarcisio Mendes de Farias
    • Data Modeling, Knowledge Graphs, Omics Data, Ontologies

Keynote: Nirav Merchant

Director of the Data Science Institute at University of Arizona, PI CyVerse

Day 1, Session 2: Artificial Intelligence

  • From Lab Bench to Web: A Strategy for Making Biomedical Data Findable and Accessible
    • Christina Parry
    • Data Standards, Fair Data Principles, Graph Databases, Repositories
  • Extending Ontology for Biomarkers of Aging using OLIVE
    • Hande Kucuk McGinty
    • Artificial Intelligence, Knowledge Graphs, Large Language Models, Ontologies
  • Building the Lighthouse: Guiding LLM-Powered Biocuration with Domain Knowledge and Context
    • Harry Caufield
    • Generative Artificial Intelligence, Large Language Models, Literature Mining, Ontologies
  • AI Curation Methods for NASA Scientific Data
    • Walter Alvarado
    • Artificial Intelligence, Curation, Large Language Models, Metadata
  • Plant Reactome: A plant pathways Knowledgebase and discovery platform
    • Sushma Naithani
    • Artificial Intelligence, Curation, Functional Gene Annotations, Knowledge Graphs

Day 1, Session 3: Data Sharing, Databases & Knowledgebases

  • Single-cell comparative transcriptomics for hundreds of species?
    • Frederic Bastian
    • Comparative Data, Curation, Data Standards, Gene Expression
  • Epitope-Driven Annotations in Protein Resources
    • Randi Vita
    • Database, ontology, protein, epitope
  • Towards FAIR Phenome: Indian Crop Phenome Database at Indian Biological Data Centre (IBDC)
    • Sonia Balyan
    • Data Sharing, Data Standards, Databases, Phenotypes
  • Making Rare Disease Data Available in the Rare Disease Cures Accelerator-Data and Analytics Platform 
    • Nicole Vasilevsky
    • Curation, Data Sharing, Disease, Fair Data Principles
  • Project ‘Shail’: Curating a mountain
    • Saurabh Raghuvanshi
    • Curation, Databases, Drug Discovery, Genomics 
  • Import of Human GWAS Data and Mapping of EFO to multiple ontologies at the Rat Genome Database
    • Stan Laulederkind
    • Curation, Disease, Genomics, Ontologies

DAY 2

Keynote: Paul Thomas

Director, Division of Bioinformatics, Director of the Gene Sequence, Function, and Health Laboratory Initiative, University of Southern California, PI Gene Ontology, PI PANTHER

Day 2, Session 1: Gene/Protein Functional Prediction 

  • DisProt: The Manually Curated Resource for Intrinsically Disordered Proteins
    • M. Victoria Nugnes
    • Curation, Databases, Ontologies, Proteins
  • A Large Scale Crowdsourcing of the Fifth Critical Assessment of Protein Function Annotation
    • Iddo Friedberg
    • Annotations, Artificial Intelligence, Functional Protein Annotations, Public Data Resources
  • New Synteny visualizations on Xenbase
    • Malcolm Fisher
    • Annotations, Comparative Data, Genomes, Synteny

Day 2, Session 2: Gene/Protein Functional Prediction

  • Cross-species quantification of function annotations provides insights into disease-associated uncharacterized human genes
    • Parnal Joshi
    • Annotations, Comparative Analysis, Data Analysis, Functional Protein Annotations
  • Leveraging the AlphaFold Database for enhanced protein function annotation
    • Paulyna Magaña
    • Annotations, Functional Protein Annotations, Protein Structure Prediction, Proteins
  • Leveraging Large Language Models for Gene Summary Generation at the Alliance of Genome Resources
    • Valerio Arnaboldi
    • Large Language Models, Literature Mining, Automated Gene Summaries, Text Summarization
  • Life Cycle Events for Protein Family Models: Birth, Maturation, Cloning, Retirement
    • Daniel Haft
    • Bacteria, Data Sharing, Functional Protein Annotations

Keynote: Andy Hickl

Chief Technology Officer, Allen Institute

Day 2, Session 3: Natural Language Processing 

  • Semi-automated curation of post-translational modification relationships using automated knowledge extraction and assembly
    • Benjamin Gyori
    • Artificial Intelligence, Curation, Databases, Literature Mining
  • Characterization and automated classification of sentences in the biomedical literature: a case study for biocuration of gene expression and protein kinase activity
    • Daniela Raciti
    • Curation, Machine Learning, Community Curation, Sentence Classification
  • Enhancing the SIB Literature Services with annotations to support biocuration
    • Deborah Caucheteur
    • Annotations, Curation, Data Analysis, Literature Mining
  • Protein structure enrichment through text mining
    • Melanie Vollmar
    • Annotations, Literature Mining, Natural Language Processing, Protein structures
  • Enhancing data annotation in ChEMBL for robust analyses
    • Sybilla Corbett
    • Annotations, Curation, Fair Data Principles, Natural Language Processing

Day 2, Session 4: Glycans 

  • Glycan Archetypes: definitions, implementations and applications for standardizing glycan structure data
    • Kiyoko Aoki-Kinoshita
    • Data Standards, Databases, Glycans, Ontologies
  • BiomarkerKB: Biomarker-centric data modeling and knowledge integration for translational research
    • Raja Mazumder
    • Curation, Databases, Glycans, Knowledge Graphs
  • Inferring Tissue and Cell-type Glycosyltransferase Specificity from Single-Cell Gene Expression Data
    • Nathan Edwards
    • Annotations, Glycans, Machine Learning

DAY 3

Keynote: Shannon Farrell

Data Curation Network/Univ. Minnesota

Day 3, Session 1: Data Curation 

  • It’s Now or Never: Delays in Biocuration Disproportionately Affect Understudied Proteins
    • An Phan
    • Curation, Data Analysis, Functional Gene Annotations, Literature Mining
  • How have standards in genomics evolved since the first microbial genome was published 3 decades ago?
    • Chris Hunter
    • Data Standards, Metadata, Ontologies, Repositories

Keynote: Sandra Orchard

ISB 2023 Exceptional Contribution to Biocuration Awardee, EMBL-European Bioinformatics Institute – UK

Day 3, Session 2: Data Curation Databases, Infrastructure, Literature Mining, Public Data Resources

  • The global biodata infrastructure: how, where, who, and what?
    • Chuck Cook
    • Databases, Infrastructure, Literature Mining, Public Data Resources

Executive Committee 2024 Election Winners

As announced at the Annual General Meeting earlier this week, we would like to congratulate the following three individuals who have been elected by members of the International Society for Biocuration to serve on the society’s Executive Committee from 2024:

  1. M. Victoria Nugnes (University of Padua)
  2. Sonia Balyan (Indian Biological Data Centre)
  3. Peter Uetz (Virginia Commonwealth University)

We would also like to thank the election officer, Harry Caufield, and the nominating committee for making this election run smoothly:

  1. Sabrina Toro (Chair)
  2. Pascale Gaudet
  3. Silvio Tosatto
  4. Saurabh Raghuvanshi
  5. Raja Mazumder

More information on the Executive Committee can be found here.

Alliance of Genome Resources Webinar – An Introduction to the Alliance

Carol Bult (0000-0001-9433-210X) will present An Introduction to the Alliance on September 19th, 2024. This will cover searching the Alliance, gene pages, and disease pages and will include a Q & A session. This is the first in an ongoing series.

Register by September 18 to receive the Zoom URL. You can find the registration link here: https://www.alliancegenome.org/news/webinar-an-introduction-to-the-alliance

Executive Committee Candidates – 2024

The election of three members of the International Society for Biocuration Executive Committee (ISB EC) will be held from September 25th – October 2nd, 2024.

Emails will be sent to current members on September 26th. Only current members, as of September 24th, 2024, who receive this email will be allowed to vote. Please note that if you are an ISB member and do not receive the email, please contact us at isb@biocurator.org.

We thank all of the following seven candidates for agreeing to stand for election to the Executive Committee (EC). Information about the candidates standing for election to the Executive Committee (EC) is available below:

Sonia Balyan

Position: Scientist

Affiliation: Indian Biological Data Centre, Regional Centre for Biotechnology, Faridabad, India

Biosketch: As a dedicated scientist specializing in plant molecular biology, biotechnology, and bioinformatics, my career is rooted in cutting-edge research and the crucial field of biocuration. With over 7 years of post-Ph.D. experience, I have developed deep expertise in managing and curating complex biological data, particularly in plant genomics and phenomics. My work is driven by a commitment to transforming raw data into accessible, well-annotated resources that are indispensable for advancing agricultural research and promoting environmental sustainability.

At the Indian Biological Data Centre (IBDC) in Faridabad, where I currently serve as a Scientist, I have played a pivotal role in pioneering initiatives that enhance the utility of big data. A cornerstone of my career has been the development of the Indian Crop Phenome Database, a unique resource designed to archive crop phenome data and ensure it adheres to FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable). I am currently spearheading the Indian Functional Genomics DataBank (IFGDb) project, which aims to create a comprehensive repository for functional genomics data, as well as the Indian Research Data Archive (IRDA), a repository for the archival of diverse research data. Additionally, I lead the genomics module of the Multiomics Analysis Toolbox at IBDC, a groundbreaking platform that facilitates the analysis of multidimensional biological data to unravel the complexities of life sciences research. These initiatives not only advance biological sciences but also highlight the essential role of biocuration in ensuring that data-driven research is both meaningful and impactful.

My contributions have been recognized within the scientific community through several publications in good-impact journals, including training and outreach activities. My passion for science communication is further evident in my role as the host of the Beyond Shodh podcast, where I engage with leading Scientists/researchers to share their research, vision and journeys to a broader audience. Through my work in biocuration, I strive to bridge the gap between data and discovery, empowering researchers to unlock new insights that drive innovation in biological sciences and beyond.

Motivation: As a scientist at India’s first Biological Data Centre, I have been actively involved in structuring and archiving our nation’s invaluable biological data. This work has deepened my understanding of the essential role biocuration plays in not just preserving data, but in making it accessible and impactful for the global scientific community. My experience has fueled a strong commitment to upholding the highest standards of data integrity and usability—values I will bring to the ISB Executive Committee.

In 2024, I led the local organizing committee for the 17th Annual International Biocuration Conference in India, where I gained firsthand experience in fostering global collaboration and advancing biocuration practices. This role provided me with a comprehensive understanding of the field’s challenges and opportunities, equipping me to contribute effectively to ISB’s strategic initiatives.

As the host of Beyond Shodh, I have actively engaged with scientists across India, highlighting the journeys of pioneers in STEM. I also manage outreach for the Indian Biological Data Centre, focusing on engaging and motivating researchers about the importance of FAIR data and data stewardship. I am passionate about expanding ISB’s outreach efforts, ensuring biocuration’s significance is effectively communicated to emerging scientists and policymakers. My goal is to strengthen the global integration of diverse datasets, particularly from underrepresented regions, to build a more inclusive and comprehensive biocuration community.

Marija Milacic

Position: Scientific Associate/Biocurator

Affiliation: Computational Biology, Ontario Institute for Cancer Research, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Biosketch: My training and wet lab experience involve an undergraduate degree in Molecular Biology and Physiology from the University of Belgrade, where I took part in human papillomavirus research, doctoral degree in Molecular and Medical Genetics from the University of Toronto, where I studied childhood cancer retinoblastoma, and postdoctoral training at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, where I studied genetics of autism spectrum disorders. My career in biocuration started in 2011, when I joined the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research and became part of the Reactome curation team. Becoming a biocurator enabled me to apply my skillset to building and maintaining a repository of biological pathways used by researchers globally. It also provided me with an insight into the importance of standardized representation of knowledge in biology and medical research, where open and continuous communication between researchers, publishers, and biocurators is key. I would like to continue my career in the field of biocuration because I believe that systematization and synthesis of knowledge is crucial for the ethical advancement of basic and applied biological sciences.

Motivation: As an ISB member for ten years now and a biocurator for more than thirteen years, I greatly appreciate the ISB’s efforts in bringing together biocurators from many different areas of biology, providing professional guidance, and improving the visibility of this profession. It would be an honor to contribute to the ISB as a member of its Executive Committee. As a biocurator of a peer-reviewed pathway database, I would bring to the Executive Committee experience in the areas of data visualization and community curation. The areas within the ISB that I would like to see developed are Training, Outreach, and Communication, and the IT Infrastructure.

Maria Victoria Nugnes

Position: Senior biocurator and trainer of the DisProt database (https://disprot.org/)

Affiliation: BioComputing UP Lab (https://protein.bio.unipd.it/) at University of Padua, Italy

Biosketch: I am a senior biocurator for DisProt (https://disprot.org/), database of manually curated intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs) from literature, working both remotely from my country, Argentina, and in person at Silvio Tosatto’s lab at the University of Padova, in Italy. In this role, I curate and revise contributions from over 40 community curators spanning various countries from all over the world. I first joined DisProt as a curator in 2021 and have been focused on biocuration as my primary research interest since then. Over the course of the last two years, I assumed leadership responsibilities also for database thematic datasets and I have had the opportunity to manually curate over 1,200 publications. In addition to my curation duties, I design and deliver training materials and sessions for DisProt biocurators. My training sessions are conducted both remotely and in person, with recent sessions held in Argentina and Chile. My work is driven by a passion for enhancing our understanding of IDPs and supporting the global community of biocurators.

Motivation: My career in biocuration is dedicated to improving the quality and accessibility of biological data, particularly concerning intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs). I am from Argentina, where I work mainly remotely from, and I am deeply committed to helping people from lower-middle-income countries gain access to the tools, knowledge, and support needed to excel in biocuration.

If given the opportunity to serve on the ISB Executive Committee, I will bring:

Expertise in IDP Curation: My extensive experience with the DisProt database, best practices, ontologies and standards, that will help me to provide valuable insights into the curation processes.

Commitment to Education and Training: I am passionate about supporting and mentoring fellow curators. I have conducted numerous training sessions in English and in Spanish, both virtual and in-person, including a Spanish-language DisProt Biocuration course on the ELIXIR-SI eLearning platform. I aim to expand these educational initiatives to benefit curators worldwide.

Dedication to Collaboration and Community Building: My involvement in international projects, such as HUPO Proteomics Standards Initiative and Gene Ontology, have fostered strong collaborative skills and I am dedicated to building a supportive and connected biocuration community.

Within ISB, I would like to focus on the following areas:

  • Enhanced Training and Support: Develop comprehensive and accessible training programs, including multilingual options, to support curators from diverse backgrounds and regions in their career progression, especially those from lower-middle-income countries.
  • Standardization and Best Practices: Advocate for the adoption of standardized curation practices across databases, facilitating data integration and interoperability.
  • Community Engagement and Collaboration: Strengthen the global biocuration community by encouraging collaborative projects and networks, fostering a sense of common goal and mutual support among curators.

I am deeply honored to be this year’s recipient of the ISB Excellence in Biocuration Early Career Award 2024. This recognition increases even more my dedication to supporting and uplifting the global biocuration community. I am eager to contribute to the ISB Executive Committee, bringing enthusiasm, dedication, and a collaborative spirit to support and elevate our biocuration community even further.

Santhi Ramachandran

Position: Curator

Affiliation: GWAS Catalogue Curator, Cambridge, UK

Biosketch: I have been working in the field of biocuration since 2012, with a primary focus on variant curation. Over the years, I have gained extensive experience by working with prominent organizations and now at EMBL-EBI. My work has provided me with a strong foundation in biocuration practices, and I have also had the opportunity to engage with users of the curated data, gaining a deeper understanding of its practical applications in research and healthcare. This interaction has shaped my approach to curation, ensuring that the data we provide is accurate, reliable, and impactful for both scientific and societal advancement.

Motivation: I am motivated to run for a position on the ISB Executive Committee due to my decade-long experience in biocuration and my desire to contribute to the field’s growth. Over the past decade, I have worked with various organizations, including my current role at EMBL-EBI, where I have developed expertise in curating high-quality, impactful data. This experience has deepened my understanding of the complexities of biocuration and its vital role in supporting research and healthcare. I believe that the success of biocuration depends not only on data accuracy but also on how effectively this data is applied in real-world settings.

As a member of the ISB Executive Committee, I aim to contribute to the broader advancement of biocuration by leveraging my strong background in curation and my insights into the evolving needs of data users. I am particularly eager to promote stronger connections between curators and end-users, enhancing the practical impact of curated data. Additionally, I would advocate for expanding training programs and resources to support the next generation of biocurators, ensuring that ISB continues to lead the way in this critical field. Through these efforts, I hope to enhance the impact of biocuration within the scientific community.

Umasri Sankarlal

Position: Freelance Biocurator

Affiliation: Freelancer

Biosketch: My career started as a Biocurator participating in various projects involved in building comprehensive databases for Biomarker, Biological Pathway and Chemical compounds. Since 2004, my passion in biocuration has been growing, and volunteered myself wherever I got an opportunity. During my career break, I worked as freelance ontology mentor to developers, shared ideas on developing an ontology for online databases and supporting with necessary datasets for their project. I worked as short time Consulting Analyst with Thomson Reuters, Chennai on their Drug Forecasting database. Even though working a full-time employee in IT firm, I volunteer to be a member of ClinGen Intellectual Disability and Autism Gene curation working group panel and publishing the curated genes after my office hours.

Motivation: I nominate for a position in Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Committee. In my 20 years of work experience as a Biocurator, Patent analyst, IT Operation Analyst, Autosys Specialist and currently as Software Quality Analyst acquired technical skills with the help of diverse expertise team I worked with in various companies. I have always been treated equally without any gender bias and got motivated at my work place. The team have included people from various cultures and countries, and always supported in sharing their expertise knowledge to improve my career. Now it is my turn to return their kindness to others who need encouragement and support. Apart from doing at my current workplace, the role as a member of EDI committee in ISB will be more meaningful and have impact in Biocuration field.

Peter Uetz

Position: Associate Professor

Affiliation: Center for Biological Data Science, School of Life Sciences, Richmond, VA, USA

Biosketch: I have started the Reptile Database in 1996 when I was a graduate student at EMBL, Heidelberg, Germany. Since then, the database has become one of the most comprehensive biodiversity databases worldwide (being one of 160 databases in the Catalogue of Life consortium). I have also founded the Microbial Protein Interaction database, now a part of IntAct. After being an investigator at The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR) and the Venter Institute (JCVI) for about 5 years I was hired as associate professor at VCU in Richmond, Va, in 2011. I am teaching courses in functional genomics and bioinformatics there, training students in biodiversity data-related curation and processing. The database and various papers about it have been cited 4000-5000 times.

Motivation: Biocuration is an undervalued part of biomedical sciences and I feel strongly that its role needs to be better promoted and students trained in this field. While all biomedical scientists are using various databases, they rarely appreciate the huge amount of work required to establish and maintain these data sources. My long career experience in database curation and promotion will help the ISB to promote and advance the field, although I am currently focusing on biodiversity data, an area that has been underrepresented at ISB, hence one of my goals is to strengthen the links to biodiversity and other biological sub-disciplines that are not well covered by ISB.

Huajin Wang

Position: Senior Librarian

Affiliation: Carnegie Mellon University

Biosketch: I am a Cell Biologist turned information professional and open science advocate. As a Senior Librarian at Carnegie Mellon University Libraries, I provide consultation and develop programs that help research communities make their research data and outputs more open, reproducible, and reusable, foster collaboration across disciplinary boundaries, and engage stakeholders to build a healthy data ecosystem. I have been in consulting roles for data curation and management on many research projects. As a life sciences researcher, I have collaborated with biologists, clinicians, and data scientists on many successful research projects in areas spanning membrane trafficking, lipid metabolism, bioinformatics, and management and analysis of multimodal datasets. I completed my PhD in Cell Biology at University of Alberta, postdoctoral research at Yale/Harvard, and independent research at Carnegie Mellon University. I was a co-founder and Director of the Open Science & Data Collaborations Program at CMU. I served a senior leadership role at the Center for Open Science to drive culture change in research communities with technology, community building, services, and thought leadership. I am a member of the Data Curation Network, FORCE11, and other organizations that contribute to the scholarly data ecosystem. I am also on the Advisory Committee of the UK Reproducibility Network (UKRN).

Affiliation: The biggest asset that makes me an excellent fit for the Executive Committee is my rich and multifaceted experience with data in the many roles I play – a scientist, a data steward, a community builder, and a strategic leader. During my career as a scientist, I worked with large varieties of research data and data formats, and deeply appreciated the value of well curated, open datasets. When I move into a librarian and open science role, it has been my mission to help researchers make data more open and reusable so that the results are more reproducible. I co-founded the Open Science & Data Collaborations program at CMU, and served as the Director of Program at the Center for Open Science (the nonprofit running OSF). In these roles, I helped researchers and communities navigate data sharing, stewardship and curation. I oversaw the strategy and execution of training and consulting services, launched community engagement and outreach initiatives, and supported communities and stakeholders to adopt data sharing infrastructure and best practices. The communities I worked with span a wide range of life sciences fields including neuroscience, cancer biology, genomics, and virology, with an emphasis on early career researchers and under represented groups.

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