Bioinformatics Open Source Conference
| Bioinformatics Open Source Conference | |
|---|---|
 BOSC Logo | |
| Frequency | Annually |
| Location(s) | Madison, United States (2022) |
| Years active | 24 |
| Previous event | BOSC 2022 |
| Next event | BOSC 2023 |
| Attendance | ~100[1] |
| Organised by | Nomi L. Harris, Karsten Hokamp (2021 chairs)[2] |
| Member | Open Bioinformatics Foundation |
| Website | www |
The Bioinformatics Open Source Conference (BOSC) is an academic conference on open-source programming and other open science practices in bioinformatics, organised by the Open Bioinformatics Foundation. The conference has been held annually since 2000 and is run as a two-day meeting either within Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology (ISMB) conference or as a joint conference with the Galaxy community.
Program
[edit]The conference is held as a single track consisting of presentations, poster sessions and two keynote talks by people of influence in open-source bioinformatics.[1]
Since 2010, an informal two-day "CollaborationFest" (formerly Codefest) has been held directly preceding the conference.[3][4]
History
[edit]National Institutes of Health Associate Director for Data Science Philip Bourne and C. Titus Brown gave keynote talks at BOSC 2014.[5]
BOSC 2016 was organized in Orlando, Florida from July 8–9 before the main ISMB conference.[6]
In 2018 and 2020, BOSC partnered with Galaxy to organize two joint conferences called GCCBOSC and Bioinformatics Community Conference (BCC) respectively.[7] The event in 2018 was held in Portland, Oregon.[8] The BCC in 2020 took place online with two time schedules for eastern/western time zones[9]
Since 2021, BOSC has been taking place within the ISMB conferences again. In 2023 BOSC took place in Lyon, France between July 24-28 as part of the ISMB/ECCB conference.
Conference Highlights
[edit]BOSC 2023
[edit]The 2023 Bioinformatics Open Source Conference (BOSC 2023) was held on July 24–25, 2023, drawing over 2,100 in-person attendees and approximately 900 online viewers. About 200 participants actively engaged in the event's sessions and activities.[10]
Keynote Presentations
[edit]The keynote speakers were Sara El-Gebali and Joseph M. Yracheta.
- El-Gebali presented “A New Odyssey: Pioneering the Future of Scientific Progress Through Open Collaboration”. Her talk explored navigating the realm of science through diverse alliances and institutions, with a focus on promoting open science through collaboration.
- Yracheta gave a talk titled “The Dissonance between Scientific Altruism & Capitalist Extraction: The Zero Trust and Federated Data Sovereignty Solution”, offering insights from the American Indian perspective in the United States. He critiqued the lack of clarity and transparency in current Open Data policies, arguing they tend to prioritize funding and researcher data rights over individual privacy.
Open and Ethical Data Sharing Panel
[edit]
In addition to the keynotes, BOSC 2023 hosted a panel on Open and Ethical Data Sharing, featuring keynote speakers El-Gebali and Yracheta along with Verena Ras and Bastian Greshake Tzovaras. The panel addressed the absence of a formal ethical code for bioinformaticians and emphasized the need for stronger advocacy in ethical data sharing practices.
Topical Sessions and Posters
[edit]
BOSC also featured a topical session comprising 53 talks, with 49 presenters displaying posters. Topics included, but were not limited to:
- Open Science and Reproducible Research
- Open Biomedical Data
- Citizen/Participatory Science
- Standards and Interoperability
- Data Science, Workflows, Data Access and Visualization
- Open Approaches to Translational Bioinformatics
- Developer Tools and Libraries
- Inclusion, Outreach and Training
BOSC 2022
[edit]BOSC 2022 marked the first hybrid Bioinformatics Open Source Conference, offering both virtual and in-person attendance in Madison, Wisconsin. Approximately 1,000 participants attended in person, with an additional 800 joining virtually. The conference featured a panel discussion titled 'Building and Sustaining Inclusive Open Science Communities,' along with 28 talks and 46 posters covering various topics in bioinformatics. BOSC 2022 also included joint keynotes with the Education and Bio-Ontologies Communities of Special Interest (COSIs). Jason Williams presented 'Riding the Bicycle: Including All Scientists on a Path to Excellence,' and Melissa Haendel delivered 'The Open Data Highway: Turbo-Boosting Translational Traffic with Ontologies.' [12]
Past conferences
[edit]As of January 2024, there have been 24 BOSC held around the world, of those 20 were purely in-person conferences, 2 purely remote due to the COVID-19 pandemic and one that was organized as a hybrid meeting.[13]
| Year | Conference partner | Location | Keynote speakers |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | ISMB | Lyon, France | Joseph M. Yracheta, Sara El-Gebali |
| 2022 | ISMB | Hybrid: Madison, WI and online | Jason Williams, Melissa Haendel |
| 2021 | ISMB | Online (would have been Lyon) | Christie Bahlai, Lara Mangravite, Thomas Hervé Mboa Nkoudou |
| 2020 | GCC | Online (would have been Toronto) | Lincoln Stein, Abigail Cabunoc Mayes |
| 2019 | ISMB | Basel, Switzerland | Nicola Mulder |
| 2018 | GCC | Portland, OR | Fernando Pérez, Tracy Teal |
| 2017 | ISMB | Prague, Czech Republic | Mad Price Ball, Nick Loman |
| 2016 | ISMB | Orlando, FL | Jennifer Gardy, Steven Salzberg |
| 2015 | ISMB | Dublin, Ireland | Ewan Birney, Holly Bik |
| 2014 | ISMB | Boston, MA | Philip Bourne, Titus Brown |
| 2013 | ISMB | Berlin, Germany | Sean Eddy, Cameron Neylon |
| 2012 | ISMB | Long Beach, CA | Jonathan Eisen, Carole Goble |
| 2011 | ISMB | Vienna, Austria | Lawrence Hunter, Matt Wood |
| 2010 | ISMB | Boston, MA | Guy Coates, Ross Gardler |
| 2009 | ISMB | Stockholm, Sweden | Robert Hanmer, Alan Ruttenberg |
| 2008 | ISMB | Toronto, Canada | Julian Lombardi |
| 2007 | ISMB | Vienna, Austria | Carole Goble |
| 2006 | ISMB | Fortaleza, Brasil | Amos Bairoch, Alberto M.R. Davila |
| 2005 | ISMB | Detroit, MI | Hilmar Lapp |
| 2004 | ISMB | Glasgow, Scotland | Wolfgang Huber |
| 2003 | ISMB | Brisbane, Australia | - |
| 2002 | ISMB | Edmonton, Canada | Ewan Birney, Michael Eisen, Winston Hide |
| 2001 | ISMB | Copenhagen, Denmark | Steven Brenner |
| 2000 | ISMB | San Diego, CA | Tim O'Reilly, Lincoln Stein |
References
[edit]- ^ a b Harris, N. L.; Cock, P.; Chapman, B.; Goecks, J.; Hotz, H.-R.; Lapp, H. (July 14, 2014). "The Bioinformatics Open Source Conference (BOSC) 2013". Bioinformatics. 31 (2): 299–300. doi:10.1093/bioinformatics/btu413. PMC 4287938. PMID 25024288.
- ^ "BOSC 2021 – Open Bioinformatics Foundation". Retrieved November 22, 2022.
- ^ "Codefest - Open Bioinformatics Foundation". www.open-bio.org. Retrieved July 20, 2014.
- ^ Möller, Steffen; Afgan, Enis; Banck, Michael; Cock, Peter J. A.; Kalas, Matus; Kajan, Laszlo; Prins, Pjotr; Quinn, Jacqueline; Sallou, Olivier; Strozzi, Francesco; Seemann, Torsten; Tille, Andreas; Valls Guimera, Roman; Katayama, Toshiaki; Chapman, Brad (October 14, 2013). "Sprints, Hackathons and Codefests as community gluons in computational biology". EMBnet.journal. 19 (B): 40. doi:10.14806/ej.19.B.726.
- ^ "BOSC 2014 Schedule - Open Bioinformatics Foundations". www.open-bio.org. Retrieved July 20, 2014.
- ^ "BOSC 2016 – Open Bioinformatics Foundation". Open Bio.
- ^ "About BOSC - Open Bioinformatics Foundation". Retrieved November 22, 2022.
- ^ "GCCBOSC 2018 - Open Bioinformatics Foundation". Retrieved November 22, 2022.
- ^ "Bioinformatics Community Conference". Retrieved November 22, 2022.
- ^ "BOSC 2023, the 24th annual Bioinformatics Open Source Conference". PubMed Central. National Center for Biotechnology Information. Retrieved April 21, 2025.
- ^ "BOSC 2023: Bioinformatics Open Source Conference". BOSC 2023. Open Bioinformatics Foundation. Retrieved April 21, 2025.
- ^ Harris, Nomi. "BOSC 2022: the first hybrid and 23rd annual Bioinformatics Open Source Conference". PubMed NCBI. U.S. National Library of Medicine. Retrieved April 20, 2025.
- ^ "OBF » About BOSC » About BOSC". Retrieved November 23, 2022.
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