May 2024: The 22nd Israeli Bioinformatics Symposium (IBS2024)

The 22nd Israeli Bioinformatics Symposium (IBS2024) took place on May 7 2024 in Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU).

IBS is the main annual conference of the Israeli bioinformatics community. Hundreds of participants from all universities in Israel attended the conference. The symposium was opened by Prof. Daniel Chamovitz, The President of BGU, and former member of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Bioinformatics. One of the keynote talks was by Prof. Nikolaus Rajewsky (Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine) who talked about spatial transcriptomics at high-resolution and in 3D, applied to solid human tumors. Another keynote speaker was Prof. Esti Yeger-Lotem, of BGU, who talked about genetics in the context of enhancing rare disease diagnosis via interpretable machine learning. The program included additional talks by bioinformatics faculty members, including a talk by Dr. Yaara Oren, Edmond J. Safra affiliate (Medicine) and a lively poster session.

A special prize was presented to Prof. Ron Shamir, Edmond J. Safra member (Computer Science) and former head of the Edmond J. Safra Center.

Prof. Shamir was awarded "Lifetime Achievement Award" from the Israeli Bioinformatics Society (IBSCB).  Prof. Shamir is the founding father of bioinformatics in Israel and one of the founders of this research domain in the world.

Dr. Yaron Orenstein, former Edmond J. Safra PhD student fellow in Shamir lab (Computer Science), and now tenure-track faculty member in Bar-Ilan, greeted Prof. Shamir.

The Edmond J. Safra Center supported the conference and also provided two prizes to students in the best poster competition.

The third place in the best poster competition was awarded to Tal Bamberger, Edmond J. Safra MD-PhD student fellow (Borenstein lab, Medicine) for her poster titled "The best friends of our best friend – the dog’s microbiome".

The poster prizes were presented in memory of Gal Eisenkot z"l, bioinformatics undergraduate student at Tel Aviv University, who was fallen in Iron Swords war.

For pictures from the event click here.