Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing

Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing
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Name	Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing
Abbreviation	PSB
Established	1996
Frequency	Annual
Venue	Big Island of Hawaii
Discipline	Bioinformatics, Computational biology
Publisher	PSB Organizing Committee

Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing

The Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing is an annual interdisciplinary conference convened on the Big Island of Hawaii that brings together researchers from Stanford University, Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of California, San Diego, University of California, Berkeley and other institutions to present advances in Bioinformatics, Computational biology, Genomics, Proteomics and Systems biology. Founded in the mid-1990s, the symposium attracts participants from organizations such as National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Wellcome Trust and industry leaders including Google, Microsoft Research, IBM Research, Illumina and Genentech.

History

The symposium was launched in 1996 amid rapid developments at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Whitehead Institute, The Sanger Institute, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, European Bioinformatics Institute, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Argonne National Laboratory as a forum parallel to meetings like RECOMB, ISMB, Gordon Research Conferences, Keystone Symposia and American Society for Microbiology events. Early years featured contributions from researchers affiliated with Stanford School of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Yale University School of Medicine, University of Washington, Carnegie Mellon University and University of California, Irvine. Over time the program incorporated themes emerging from projects at Human Genome Project, ENCODE Project Consortium, 1000 Genomes Project, International Cancer Genome Consortium and initiatives funded by Howard Hughes Medical Institute and European Research Council.

Organization and Governance

The symposium is organized by an elected program committee drawn from academics at University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, Johns Hopkins University, University of Chicago, Columbia University, Princeton University, Yale University, Duke University and research labs such as Francis Crick Institute and Roche. Oversight involves collaboration with funding bodies like National Institute of General Medical Sciences, National Human Genome Research Institute, Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Australian Research Council and institutional partners at University of Tokyo, Kyoto University, Peking University, Tsinghua University and Seoul National University. Local logistics coordinate with Hawaii Convention Center, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Hawaiʻi Community College and hospitality providers with ties to Hilton Worldwide, Marriott International and Hyatt Hotels Corporation.

Conference Topics and Themes

Sessions span topics linked to projects and methods from groups at Broad Institute, Scripps Research, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Max Planck Society, European Molecular Biology Laboratory and Los Alamos National Laboratory, featuring advances in Genomics and Transcriptomics, algorithmic work influenced by Alan Turing-era concepts and methods used at Bell Labs and IBM Research. Themes include machine learning applications pioneered at Google DeepMind, Facebook AI Research, OpenAI, and Microsoft Research applied to datasets from The Cancer Genome Atlas, GTEx Consortium, Exome Aggregation Consortium and Human Cell Atlas. Other sessions draw on techniques from CRISPR-Cas9 studies at University of California, Berkeley, University of California, San Francisco, MIT and ethical discussions associated with Nuremberg Code-era frameworks and guidance from World Health Organization and United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

Proceedings and Publications

Proceedings have been archived and cited alongside journals and outlets such as Nature, Science, Cell, Genome Research, Bioinformatics (journal), PLOS Computational Biology, PLoS Genetics, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, IEEE/ACM Transactions on Computational Biology and Bioinformatics and preprints on arXiv, bioRxiv. Papers often reference databases maintained by National Center for Biotechnology Information, European Nucleotide Archive, UniProt Consortium, Protein Data Bank, KEGG, Reactome and software distributed via GitHub and platforms like Docker and Conda. Special issues and invited reviews have been published in collaboration with editorial boards from Nature Biotechnology, Genome Biology, BMC Bioinformatics, IEEE Computational Intelligence Magazine and Trends in Biotechnology.

Awards and Recognition

The symposium recognizes outstanding work with awards modeled on honors given by National Academy of Sciences, Royal Society, Lasker Foundation, Gairdner Foundation, Breakthrough Prize Foundation and memorial lectures named for figures associated with Rosalind Franklin, Francis Crick, James Watson, Sydney Brenner, Margaret Dayhoff and Alan Turing. Sponsored fellowships and travel awards receive support from Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Gates Foundation, Wellcome Trust, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science and corporate partners including Illumina and Thermo Fisher Scientific.

Notable Participants and Collaborations

Participants have included investigators from Eric Lander-affiliated projects, scientists associated with George Church, collaborators from Ewan Birney, Rudolf Jaenisch, Feng Zhang, Jennifer Doudna, David Baker, Russ Altman, David Haussler, Pavel Pevzner, Trey Ideker, Pavel Pevzner's colleagues, and contributors from labs led by Manolis Kellis, Sebastian Seung, Janelle Ayres, Anne Carpenter and Barbara Wold. Collaborative efforts have linked PSB attendees to consortia like ENCODE Project Consortium, Human Cell Atlas, The Cancer Genome Atlas, 1000 Genomes Project, International HapMap Project and partnerships with companies including Genentech, Amgen, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Roche Diagnostics, Siemens Healthineers and Bayer AG.

Category:Computational biology conferences