RSG-Turkey aims to create a framework for communication and interaction of students and postdocs working in the field of computational biology and bioinformatics in Turkey and to connect the young Turkish community to their international colleagues. Our main goal is to provide an environment where young scientists can share their knowledge and experiences from various institutions and to encourage cooperation between them. Additionally, RSG-Turkey plans to expand the educational and work opportunities of students and researchers in the early years of their careers.

Although computational biology and bioinformatics is a relatively new research field, several groups are conducting high-quality research in Turkey and the number of student (undergraduate and graduate) researchers is quite high. However, there is an organizational gap for students to translate this high potential into productive discussions, sharing knowledge, and keeping abreast of each other’s research. Conferences and workshops are held regularly in different cities and throughout the country. One of our mission is to close the existing organizational gap by attending and announcing regular conferences and workshops in different cities and across the country.

RSG-Turkey will serve several universities and collaborate closely with the Bioinformatics Council, a recently established national organization that we perceive as the Turkish counterpart of the ISCB. In this way, it will help conduct industrial and academic research in the field of computational biology and bioinformatics.

Due to the limited range of applications in industry, computational biology and bioinformatics is not a well-known field among students in Turkey. Encouraging graduates to become more familiar with this field will be another goal for our community. In this way, in order to popularize the subject, we organize short speech series (webinars) given by local and foreign researchers working in this field. Additionally, we create information desks in university student centers to promote computational biology and bioinformatics.