Theme: Precision Public Health – A 2020 Vision
Date: April 6-8, 2020
Venue: SAS Institute in Cary, NC

MCBIOS2020 is the 17th annual conference of  MCBIOS and will be held in conjunction with the 4th annual conference of MAQC Society (MAQC2020 will be held in the same venue between April 8-10 with the theme of “Reproducibility – A 2020 Vision”). Annually, MCBIOS recognizes excellent young and upcoming talent with “MCBIOS Young Scientist Excellence Award”. We are currently seeking applications for individuals who are interested in being considered for this prestigious award. This award will be given to students and postdoctoral fellows that are exhibit scientific excellence in the fields of Bioinformatics and Computational Biology.

Applications submitted by students and postdoctoral fellows go through a rigorous award application process andthree Students and three postdoctoral fellows will be selected as finalists in their respective categories. Each finalist will give a plenary presentation during a dedicated Young Scientist Excellence Award Scientific Session.
  • Selected finalists from each category will give plenary presentation and receive free registration to both the MCBIOS and MAQC conferences and hotel accommodations for the duration of both meetings.
  • The top student and postdoctoral fellow will also receive cash award of $500
  • Please contact Zhaohui “Steve” Qin for more information

Deadline – The submission deadline for consideration is September 30, 2019.

Judging Criteria – To help you decide if you want to compete, here are some considerations related to criteria for judging:

  • While the quality and impact of the research will be a consideration, the quality of your professional presentation will be by far the primary consideration for the award (the judges will understand that the research topic is usually determined by the institution and advisor and not wholly within your control).
  • Research that is neither to too stale (i.e., old and recycled), nor too immature is preferred.
  • The creativity, dedication and multidisciplinary contribution you have demonstrated the research will be important factors.
  • The multidisciplinary talent and initiative you have demonstrated to expand your skills will be an important consideration.
  • Whether you have shown an understanding of the scientific method will be an important factor (e.g., validity and reliability considerations).
  • CLARITY will be critical, in both the submission application as well as in the presentation.

Award Application: To apply for the Young Scientist Excellence Award please complete the application form, save a copy of the form and email the form to: mcbios.ysea2020@gmail.com.  The application includes the following three separate sections  The application includes the following three separate sections:

  • Abstract: The Abstract should not exceed 300 words. Please minimize the use of abbreviations and do not cite references in the abstract. The abstract must include the following separate sections:
    • Background: the context and purpose of the study
    • Results: the main findings and
    • Conclusions: a summary and potential implications

Innovation in research: Describe your innovative contributions in 150 words or less. Innovation can mean many different things. Tell us what you did that was innovative (e.g., extra efforts to assure validity or replicability; learned an entirely new area of chemistry, biology or computation; employed algorithms in new ways).

Author Contributions: Describe your specific contributions to the project in 150 words or less, i.e., what tasks you carried out in the project, and what tasks  collaborators carried.