Call for Papers and Posters

PSB 2025 Session: Big Data Imaging Genomics 

Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing 

January 4-8, 2025 

The Big Island of Hawaii, USA

Motivation

Imaging genomics, big data, electronic health records and data sharing research present challenges to the biocomputing community. The scale and complexity of multidimensional imaging and omics data provide unprecedented opportunities to understand the systems biology and etiology of complex disorders. Big data and data sharing approaches provide large and powerful datasets to ensure that findings are generalizable and replicable. Challenges in assembling, homogenizing, and sharing of data and performing analyses in such datasets will be the focus of this session. We expect a stimulating discussion on how to evolve this field through the Big Data national and international collaborations such as ABCD, UKBB, ENIGMA, ADSP, All of Us, the Human Connectome Project, and the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium (PGC).

Session Topics

The scale and complexity of multidimensional imaging and omics data provide unprecedented opportunities in enhancing mechanistic understanding of complex disorders such as neuropsychiatric and neurometabolic illnesses, cancers, which can benefit public health outcomes by facilitating diagnostic and therapeutic progress. However, due to the high dimensionality and complex structure of these data sets, this field is facing major computational and bioinformatics challenges. We welcome submissions to address these challenges. Topics include but are not limited to:

• Development of methods handling the challenges created by large scale and multidimensional imaging, omics and biomedical data
• Reports of replicability and reproducibility of disorder-related findings and the translation to the individual level, guiding diagnostics, prognosis, and treatment
• Development of QA/QC approaches for Big Data research focused on understanding of the sources of non-biological variance
• Novel predictive and causative modeling approaches to imaging, genomics and biomedical Big Data
• Use of electronic health records (EHR) in Big Data healthcare research and translation of findings to guide clinical decision making
• Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) approaches applied to Big Data in genomics, imaging,  biology, medicine, and healthcare.
• Generative AI, trustworthy AI, foundation models and large language models applied to Big Data in genomics, imaging,  biology, medicine, and healthcare.

Session Organizers

Peter Kochunov, Ph.D., UTHealth Houston, Peter.Kochunov@uth.tmc.edu 

Li Shen, Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania, Li.Shen@pennmedicine.upenn.edu 

Paul M. Thompson, Ph.D.,  University of South California, pthomp@usc.edu 

Zhongming Zhao, Ph.D., UTHealth Houston, zhongming.zhao@uth.tmc.edu 

Session contact: Yizhou Ma, Ph.D., UTHealth Houston, yizhou.ma@uth.tmc.edu

Important Dates

Paper submissions due: Aug 1, 2024

Notification of paper acceptance: September 9, 2024

Camera-ready final paper due: October 1, 2024

Deadline for poster abstracts: December 2, 2024

PSB 2025: January 4-8, 2025

See http://psb.stanford.edu/keydates/ for more information about registration, travel award applications and so on. Submission and Paper Format

Submission: Please submit online following the instructions at https://psb.stanford.edu/psb-online/psb-submit/.  

Paper Format: Papers should be limited to 12 pages (not including the cover letter) and formatted according to the instructions at https://psb.stanford.edu/psb-online/psb-submit/. The accepted file formats are: postscript (*.ps) and Adobe Acrobat (*.pdf). Attached files should be named with the last name of the first author (e.g. altman.ps or 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.

Cover Letter: 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:

• The email address of the corresponding author.
• The specific PSB session that should review the paper.
• The submitted paper contains original, unpublished results, and is not currently under consideration elsewhere.
• All co-authors concur with the contents of the paper.

Paper Review: Please note that the submitted papers are peer­-reviewed and accepted on a competitive basis. 

Proceedings: The core of the conference consists of rigorously peer­reviewed full­length 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 will also initiate submission to PubMed Central (PMC); however, PMC indexing applies only to papers that comply with the NIH Public Access Policy.

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