Call For Papers, Abstracts and Demonstrations

Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing

Big Island of Hawaii - January 3-7, 2024

The twenty-ninth Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing (PSB), will be held January 3-7, 2024 at the Fairmont Orchid on the Big Island of Hawaii. PSB will bring together top researchers from North America, the Asian Pacific nations, Europe and around the world to exchange research results and address open issues in all aspects of computational biology. PSB will provide a forum for the presentation of work in databases, algorithms, interfaces, visualization, modeling and other computational methods, as applied to biological problems, with emphasis on applications in data-rich areas of molecular biology. PSB intends to attract a balanced combination of computer scientists and biologists, presenting significant original research, demonstrating computer systems, and facilitating formal and informal discussions on topics of importance to computational biology.

To provide focus for the very broad area of biological computing, PSB is organized into a series of specific sessions. Each session will involve both formal research presentations and open discussion groups.

Papers and posters

The core of the conference consists of rigorously peer-reviewed full-length papers reporting on original work. All accepted papers will be published electronically and indexed in PubMed, and the best of these will be presented orally to the entire conference.

PSB's publisher, World Scientific Publishing (WSP), will initiate submission to PubMed Central (PMC) for accepted papers that must comply with the NIH Public Access Policy. Authors are responsible for ensuring that the manuscript is deposited into the NIHMS upon acceptance for publication. The author must complete all remaining steps in the NIHMS in order for the submission to be accepted.

Per WSP, authors may post their submitted manuscript (preprint) at any time on their personal website, in their company or institutional repository, in not-for-profit subject-based preprint servers or repositories, and on scholarly collaboration networks (SCNs) which have signed up to the STM sharing principles. Please provide the following applicable acknowledgement along with a link to the article via its DOI if available.

Authors are encouraged to submit preprints to bioRxiv, an online archive and distribution service operated by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory for preprints in the life sciences.

Researchers wishing to present their research without official publication are encouraged to submit a one page abstract by the abstract deadline listed below to present their work in the poster sessions.

Important dates

Paper submissions due (absolute deadline): August 1, 2023 11:59PM PT
Notification of paper acceptance: September 11, 2023
Final paper deadline: October 2, 2023 11:59PM PT
Abstract deadline: December 2, 2023 11:59PM PT
Meeting: January 3-7, 2024

Paper format

Please reference the PSB paper format template and instructions.
The accepted file format is PDF (Adobe Acrobat preferred). Attached files should be named with the last name of the first author (e.g. altman.pdf). Hardcopy submissions or unprocessed TEX or LATEX files or electronic submissions not submitted through the paper management system will be rejected without review.

Each paper must be accompanied by a cover letter. The cover letter should be the first page of your paper submission. The cover letter must state the following:

Submitted papers are limited to twelve (12) pages (NOT including the cover letter, title page with author list, or references) in our publication format. Please format your paper according to instructions found at http://psb.stanford.edu/psb-online/psb-submit/. If figures cannot be easily resized and placed precisely in the text, then it should be clear that with appropriate modifications, the total manuscript length would be within the page limit. Color images are accepted for publication at no additional charge. Supplemental material may be referenced by URL (PSB will not host supplemental material).

Papers must be submitted to the PSB 2024 paper management system.

Contact PSB (psb.hawaii @ gmail.com) for additional information about paper submission requirements.

Travel support

We have been able to offer partial travel support to many PSB attendees in the past. However, please note that no one is guaranteed travel support. The online travel support application form will open in August.

PSB 2024 Sessions:

Each session has a chair who is responsible for organizing submissions. Please contact the specific session chair relevant to your interests for further information. Links on each of the session titles below lead to more detailed calls for participation for each session.

Artificial Intelligence in Clinical Medicine: Generative and Interactive Systems at the Human-Machine Interface

Session Chairs: Jonathan Chen, Roxana Daneshjou, David Ouyang, Emma Pierson, Ivana Jankovic, Sajjad Fouladvand

Advances in generative artificial intelligence have led to amazing large language model chatbots and text-to-image-generators. Freely available chatbots (i.e., ChatGPT) have suddenly given the general public access to interactive systems capable of passing medical licensing and clinical reasoning exams. Generative image models have been proposed as a way to transform images to protect patient privacy for the development of classification models. Leveraging these new methods can enhance patient care through clinical decision support, monitoring tools, image interpretation, and triaging capabilities, even as in-depth studies are needed to assess the impact and implications of such systems on human lives. This session is to showcase research revealing new and emerging machine learning and artificial intelligence tools that aim to solve major challenges in medicine.

  • Contact: Roxana Daneshjou
  • Email: roxanad at stanford.edu

Digital health technology data in biocomputing: Research efforts and considerations for expanding access

Session Chairs: Michelle Holko, Jessilyn Dunn, Chris Lunt

This session solicits research on continuous sensor data - algorithm development, implementation, and distributed clinical trials. We particularly encourage submissions describing opportunities for expanding academic research using data from wearable sensors, DEI and ELSI issues, implementation, and distributed clinical trials.

If you are a researcher or working with researchers on analysis of data from digital health technologies, including wearable devices, we would love to include your voice and experience in the conversation! Submissions across a diverse range of voices, including across sectors, demographics, domains, etc. are all welcomed. This balanced perspective is a key feature of this session.

  • Contact: Michelle Holko
  • Email: michelle.holko at gmail.com

Drug-repurposing and discovery in the era of “big” Real-World Data: how the incorporation of observational data, genetics, and other –omic technologies can move us forward

Session Chairs: Todd Edwards, Nikhil Khankari, Jacklyn Hellwege, Marijana Vujkovic, Megan Shuey

We cordially invite you to submit your work for consideration of publication and presentation at this year’s PSB meeting. We welcome research articles pertaining to various topics, including but not limited to: programmatic advancements for the incorporation of heterogenous data resources for learning and prediction of potential drug targets, the development, application and validation of drug discovery pipelines using genetic and -omic data, clinical case reports of drug repurposing targets that were identified by in silico discovery paradigms.

  • Contact: Todd Edwards
  • Email: todd.l.edwards at vumc.org

Overcoming health disparities in precision medicine

Session Chairs: Kathleen Barnes, Francisco De La Vega, Keolu Fox, Alexander Ioannidis, Eimear Kenny, Rasika Mattias, Bogdan Pasaniuc

  • Contact: Francisco de la Vega
  • Email: francisco.delavega at tempus.com

Precision Medicine: Innovative methods for advanced understanding of molecular underpinnings of disease

Session Chairs: Yana Bromberg, Hannah Carter, Steven E. Brenner

Technological advances in high-throughput omics technologies have made it possible to develop a new class of biomarkers that predict patient drug responses, susceptibility to diseases, and other medical outcomes. Toward the goal of precision medicine, methodological advances are needed to translate such biomarkers to the clinic as well as provide mechanistic insight as to their clinical utility. We welcome all submissions relevant to this exciting and growing area of research.

  • Contact: Yana Bromberg
  • Email: yana.bromberg at emory.edu