Harmony 2023
Conference Date
24-27, April 2023Conference Location
Seattle, WAImportant Dates
Important Links
The Computational Modeling in Biology Network (COMBINE) is an initiative to coordinate the development of the various community standards and formats in systems biology, synthetic biology and related fields. HARMONY is a codefest-type meeting, with a focus on development of the standards, interoperability and infrastructure. There are generally not many general discussions or oral presentations during HARMONY; instead, the time is devoted to allowing hands-on hacking and interaction between people focused on practical development of software and standards.
HARMONY 2023 will be hosted by Herbert Sauro and the Center for Reproducible Biomedical Modeling at the University of Washington, Seattle, WA. It is going to be organized primarily as an in-person meeting, with individual breakout sessions responsible for enabling remote participation as needed.
Most of each day will be scheduled by the communities as breakouts. In addition, we will have some time each day for community discussion and wrap-ups of breakouts and advertisements for following breakouts.
Workshop Location Details
HARMONY 2023 takes place at the University of Washington (UW, and commonly called “U-Dub”) in Seattle, Washington. HARMONY 2023 will take place in the William H. Foege Bioengineering building, at 3720 15th Ave NE, Seattle, WA 98195. The building is locked during the day, but will be open the half-hour before the meeting begins. If you arrive later than that, call the department reception at 206-685-2000, or email any of the organizers, or ping us on the COMBINE slack channel.
Arrival and Transportation
From the Seatac Airport, take the Link Light Rail north from the airport, and exit at the University of Washington station (NOT Univeristy Street Station; that’s a downtown stop). It’s a relatively short walk from there to the Bioengineering building. The nearest hotel is slightly further; a little over one mile, so you might want to bus/taxi depending on how much luggage you have. If you get an ORCA card, you can use that on any of the buses or other light rail trips you might take during your stay. There’s also a ‘Transit GO Ticket’ app you should be able to use from your phone (untested by me, but it seems reasonable?).
Hotels
The closest hotel to the Bioengineering department is the Univeristy Inn at 4140 Roosevelt Way NE, Seattle, WA 98105; it’s about a half mile walk between there and the venue. About a block further (and inexplicably slightly more expensive) is the Watertown Hotel, at 4242 Roosevelt Way NE, Seattle, WA 98105. Any hotel anywhere along the Link Light Rail line will be easy to get to/from as well, as the Univeristy of Washington station is just a half mile away from the venue.
Registration
Registration for the meeting is open and is free. Please register at the link above as soon as possible. This will help us plan the schedule and match your interests to the timing of the breakouts, etc. Note, only registered attendees will be sent information related to video conferencing links, etc.Call for Breakout Sessions
All attendees can suggest breakout sessions for hacking and/or detailed discussions of certain aspects of one or several of the COMBINE standard(s), metadata and semantic annotations (format-specific or overarching), application and implementations of the COMBINE standards, or any other topic relevant for the COMBINE community. The topics for those breakout sessions, and the time slots which would suit their communities can be submitted via the link above. Note, breakout session organisers will be responsible for creating and hosting their own online sessions, if required.Call for Lightning Talks and Posters
Requests for a lightning talk (3 min max.) and/or poster can be submitted via the link above. Please use several forms if you want to submit abstracts on different topics. The submission deadline is outlined above. Talks will take place during the community session and posters will be displayed throughout the meeting.Topics of Interest
- Data exchange, pipelines and model standards for systems and synthetic biology
- Visualization and graphical notation standards for systems and synthetic biology
- Standards for sharing and analysing biological pathway data
- Standards for computational biological models and modelling support
- Metadata description and model annotation in COMBINE standard formats
- Implementation of COMBINE standards in tools, databases and other resources
- Integrated model and data management for systems and synthetic biology
- Standardization of Artificial Intelligence approaches in biological modelling
- Emerging standardization needs and multicellular modeling
- Community aspects of COMBINE