 Having successfully applied for grants from AAAI, NIH and the Department of Energy Office of Health and Environmental Research, the first ISMB conference was held in July 1993, at the NLM.The conference was chaired by Hunter, David Searls (research associate professor at University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine) and Jude Shavlik (assistant professor of computer science at University of Wisconsin–Madison) and attracted over 200 attendees from 13 countries, submitting 69 scientific papers.The success of the first conference prompted the announcement of a second ISMB conference at the end of the meeting.