Call for papers and posters:
Biocomputing and AI for infectious disease
modelling and therapeutics
January 3-7, 2021
Big Island, Hawaii, U.S.A.
Dates:
Paper submissions due: August 3, 2020
Notification of paper acceptance: September 14, 2020
Camera-ready final paper deadline: October 1, 2020
Deadline for poster abstract submission: November 15, 2020
Paper Format and Submission Process
submit PSB proceedings are rigorously peer-reviewed publication that are Open Access and
indexed in MEDLINE/PubMed. Posters will have a easel and poster board size of 32"W x 40"H
(80x100cm).
Background
Back to 19th century, physicians and scientists used to think “bad air” is the source of infection and
disease. This miasma theory was ultimately replaced by the germ theory with the advance of the
microscope and the discovery of microorganisms. This switch dramatically changed our understanding
of infectious disease and started the new era of public health. This year again, the outbreak of novel
coronavirus 2019-nCoV has turned people’s attention to the importance of surveillance, prevention,
diagnosis and treatment of infectious disease.
Besides harmful viruses like the coronavirus (e.g. 2019-nCoV, SARS, MERS), HIV, Zika, Ebola virus, some
antibiotic resistance has become a growing challenge because of antibiotic misuse and poor
stewardship. On the other hand, adopting new microbiome-based therapeutics is another potential risk
delivering antimicrobic resistance genes to human body and intestinal microtome via mobile genetic
elements (or the other way around). For example, an important safety alert has been issued for use of a
recent successful FDA-approved microbiome-based intervention, fecal microbiota transplantation
(FMT) due to transmission of multi-drug resistant organisms. Disordered protein modelling is playing an
important role in understanding microorganism structure and function as well.
Session
This session explores new computational approaches to this timely domain, such as the 2019-nCoV-
released genomic sequences along with transmission networks, among others. The large number of
bacteria, viruses, fungi, and other microorganism genomes that are available along with clinical
implications of observed mutations, make these particularly amenable to development of novel
computational methods. Genomics technology and bioinformatics have shown to be critical tools to
help understand and solve these complicated issues ranging from understanding the process of
infection, diagnosis and discovery of the precise molecular details, to developing possible interventions
and safety profiling of possible treatments. By combining information at multiple scales, new insights
may be gained as well. Researchers focusing on tool, pipeline and algorithm development will be
encouraged to submit papers to this session.
Co-chairs
Lixin Zhang
Gil Alterovitz
Director, State Key Laboratory of Bioreactor
Assistant Professor, Brigham and Women's Hospital
Engineering East China University of Science and
/ Harvard Medical School Director, National
Technology Shanghai, 200237, China
Artificial Intelligence Institute, Department of
Veterans Affairs
Wei-Lun Alterovitz
A. Keith Dunker
Senior Bioinformatics Data Scientist
Founding Director, Center for Computational
Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research
Biology and Bioinformatics Emeritus Professor,
(CBER), U.S. Food and Drug Administration,
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Argentys Informatics
Indiana University School of Medicine
Gail H. Cassell
Senior Lecturer, Department of Global Health and
Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School Professor
and Chair, Emeritus, Department of Microbiology,
University of Alabama at Birmingham Vice President
Scientific Affairs (ret), Eli Lilly and Company
