Special Issue, IEEE Intelligent Systems, Sept/Oct 2001
(no relation to the Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology conference)
Call for Papers and Referees

MOTIVATION

Biology is rapidly becoming a data-rich science due to recent massive data generation technologies, while our biological colleagues are designing cleverer and more informative experiments due to recent advances in molecular science. These data and these experiments hold the keys to the deepest secrets of biology and medicine, but cannot be analyzed fully by humans due to the wealth and complexity of the information available. The result is a great need for intelligent systems in biology.

Intelligent systems probably helped design the last drug your doctor prescribed, and intelligent computational analysis of the human genome will drive medicine for at least the next half-century. Even as you read these words, intelligent systems are working on gene expression data to help understand genetic regulation, and thus ultimately the regulated control of all life processes including cancer, regeneration, and aging. Modern intelligent analysis of biological sequences results today in the most accurate picture of evolution ever achieved. Knowledge bases of metabolic pathways and other biological networks presently make inferences in systems biology that, for example, allow a pharmaceutical program to target a pathogen pathway that does not exist in humans, resulting in fewer side-effects to patients. Intelligent literature access systems exploit a knowledge flow exceeding half a million biomedical articles per year, while machine learning systems exploit heterogenous online databases whose exponential growth mimics Moore's law. Knowledge-based empirical approaches currently are the most successful method now known for general protein structure prediction, a problem that has been called the "Holy Grail of molecular biology" and "solving the second half of the genetic code."

This announcement seeks papers and referees for a special issue on "Intelligent Systems in Biology." Preferred papers will describe an implemented intelligent system that produces results of significance in biology or medicine. Systems which extend or enhance the intelligence of human biologists are especially welcome. Referees are solicited from experts in the field who do not intend to submit a paper.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

Authors should note that IEEE Intelligent Systems is a scholarly peer-reviewed publication intended for a broad research and user community. An informal, direct, and lively writing style should be adopted. The issue will contain a tutorial and an overview of the field, but explicitly biological terms or concepts should be explained concisely. Manuscripts should be original and should have between 6 and 10 magazine pages (not more than 7,500 words) with up to 10 references. Manuscripts should be sent to rickl[at]uci.edu in PDF format by 25 May, 2001. Potential referees and general inquiries should contact rickl[at]uci.edu directly.

GUEST EDITOR

Richard H. Lathrop
Dept. of Information and Computer Science
University of California, Irvine
Irvine, CA 92697-3425 USA
Phone: 949-824-4021
Fax: 949-824-4056
Email: rickl[at]uci.edu
Web: http://www.ics.uci.edu/~rickl/