Inspired by the workshop on Probabilistic Modeling and Machine Learning in Structural and Systems Biology organized in Helsinki, Finland in 2006, the first MLSB workshop was organized in Evry, France in September 2007. Following its success, the second MLSB workshop was organized in Brussels, Belgium in September 2008 and the third MLSB workshop was organized in Ljubljana, Slovenia in September 2009.
The workshops were attended by about 80 researchers (each) interested in applying machine learning to systems biology, who gathered and exchanged experiences and research ideas in a very fruitful two-day single session event. The scientific program was based on invited talks given by internationally renowned speakers, oral presentations of peer-reviewed original works, as well as poster sessions. Revised versions of (selected) papers were published in BMC Proceedings and JMLR Workshop and Conference proceedings.
The unanimous opinion of the attendees and organizers was that MLSB should become a recurrent annual event, keeping the same single session format. It should also alternate between co-location with Machine Learning and Systems Biology events. Since MLSB08 and MLSB09 were co-located with ECML/PKDD Conference, MLSB10 is co-located with ICSB.
MLSB07 and MLSB09 were PASCAL2 core events and the lectured were recorded and made available at VideoLectures.net.
History of MLSB