Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing (PSB) 2026: Call for Papers, Abstracts and Demonstrations

The thirty-first Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing (PSB), will be held January 3-7, 2026 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 to present significant original research, demonstrate computer systems, and facilitate formal and informal discussions on topics of importance to computational biology.

PSB 2026 Sessions:

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.

• AI and Machine Learning in Clinical Medicine: Bridging or Separating Model Intelligence and Human Expertise
  • Session Chairs: Jonathan Chen, Roxana Daneshjou, Fateme Nateghi Haredasht, Carsten Görg, Joseph D. Romano, Dokyoon Kim, Alexander Ioannidis, Brett K Beaulieu-Jones, Geoffrey H. Tison
  • Contact: Carsten Goerg (carsten.goerg at cuanschutz.edu)
• Biological molecular function: methods and benchmarks for finding function in biological dark matter
  • Session Chairs: Jason McDermott, Yana Bromberg, Hannah Carter, Travis Wheeler
  • Contact: Jason McDermott (Jason.McDermott at pnnl.gov)
• Fairness and Bias in Biomedical AI/ML: Defining Goals and Putting Them Into Practice
  • Session Chairs: Nicole Martinez-Martin, Mildred Cho
  • Contact: Nicole Martinez-Martin (nicolemz at Stanford.edu)
• Precision Medicine: Integrating large scale data and intermediate phenotypes for understanding health and treating disease
  • Session Chairs: Nilah Ioannidis, Tayo Obafemi-Ajayi, Anne O’Donnell-Luria, Steven Brenner
  • Contact: Nilah Ioannidis (nilah at berkeley.edu)
• Systems Biology and Network Analysis: From Multi-omics Integration to Biological Mechanisms
  • Session Chairs: Gurkan Bebek, Onur Mutlu, Iman Hajirasouliha, Joshua Welch, Serguei Pakhomov
  • Contact: Gurkan Bebek (gurkan.bebek at case.edu)

Papers and Posters

• Papers must be submitted to the PSB 2026 paper management system.
• 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.
• 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.
  • Preprint of an article submitted for consideration in Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing © [Year] World Scientific Publishing Co., Singapore, http://psb.stanford.edu/
  • Preprint of an article published in Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing © [Year] World Scientific Publishing Co., Singapore, http://psb.stanford.edu/ (for accepted PSB papers only).
• Authors are encouraged to submit preprints (complete and unpublished manuscripts) to bioRxiv and/or medRxiv. If you choose to submit your preprint, please ensure that the deposit is made at the time of the paper submission deadline rather than upon acceptance to avoid clashing with bioRxiv and medRxiv policies.
• Researchers wishing to present their research at PSB without official publication are encouraged to submit a one page abstract by the abstract/poster submission deadline listed below to present their work in the poster sessions.

Important Dates

• Paper submissions due (absolute deadline): August 1, 2025 11:59PM PT
• Notification of paper acceptance: September 8, 2025
• Final paper deadline: October 1, 2025 11:59PM PT
• Abstract deadline: December 1, 2025 11:59PM PT
• Meeting: January 3-7, 2026

Paper Format

• Please reference the PSB paper format template and instructions.
• Papers must be submitted to the PSB 2026 paper management system.
• The accepted file format is PDF (Adobe Acrobat preferred). 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, which should be the first page of your paper submission. The cover letter must state:
  • 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.
• Submitted papers are limited to twelve (12) pages (NOT including the cover letter, title page with author list, or references) in our publication format.
• 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).
• Contact PSB (psb.hawaii @ gmail.com) for additional information about paper submission requirements.

Travel Support

• Partial travel support may be offered to attendees, but is not guaranteed.
• The online travel support application form will open in August.
• Travel award applications deadline: October 15, 2025 11:59PM PT.
• Decisions announced: Late October 2025.

Registration

• Online registration opens: August 1, 2025
• Early registration deadline: October 31, 2025

Abstract/Poster Submission

• Poster presenters will be provided with an easel and a poster board 32"x40" (80x100cm; either portrait or landscape orientation is acceptable).
• One poster from each paid participant is accepted.
• Available: August 1, 2025
• Absolute deadline. No Extensions: December 1, 2025 11:59PM PT