The 3rd ISCB Student Council Symposium was held on 21 July 2007 in Vienna, Austria at ISMB/ECCB 2007.

Several distinguished scientists were invited to the symposium, including Janet Thornton (European Bioinformatics Institute) who presented the opening keynote on "Comparative Functional Genomics of Ageing" and Anna Tramontano (University of Rome, La Sapienza) who gave a keynote lecture on the "Advances and Pitfalls of Structural Bioinformatics". ISCB Vice President Reinhard Schneider (European Molecular Biology Laboratory) delivered the closing remarks.

For students and young scientists it is crucial to be aware of the directions in which the field is moving to make the right career decisions. The symposium addressed this challenge by providing two different perspectives on bioinformatics: During two presentation sessions and a poster session student delegates were given the opportunity to learn about the latest research of their peers.

Another, more comprehensive, view on the development of the field was provided through aforementioned keynote lectures and a panel discussion on "The Future of Bioinformatics" moderated by Thomas Lengauer (Max Planck Institute for Informatics). Several accomplished senior scientists were on the panel, namely Rita Casadio (University of Bologna), Tan Tin Wee (National University of Singapore), Janet Thornton (European Bioinformatics Institute) and Anna Tramontano (University of Rome, La Sapienza). The discussion was highly interactive, providing delegates with the opportunity to actively contribute and to ask questions. In addition, attendees were able to learn first-hand about personal experiences of some of the scientists that have shaped the field of computational biology.