BiCOB 2019: Editor's Preface

It is our pleasure to welcome the participants, authors, presenters, attendees, and organizers, of the 11th International Conference on Bioinformatics and Computational Biology (BICOB 2019), which is sponsored by the International Society for Computers and Their Applications (ISCA).

Now in its 11^th year, BICOB has established itself as one of the leading international conferences in the research areas of bioinformatics and computational biology. The conference offers researchers and scientists unique opportunities to present and discuss their research results, techniques and findings with other researchers having similar interests. This year, the BICOB conference is held in Honolulu, Hawaii, March 18 – 20, 2019.  The city of Honolulu is considered one of the world’s best destinations for scientific meetings, conventions, and fabulous sightseeing.

BICOB 2019 provides great scientific quality and broad impact, with two keynote talks by well-known scientists and contributed talks at a highly competitive acceptance rate. A broad range of topics in bioinformatics and computational biology is addressed by the conference including bioinformatics algorithms, biological networks, genomics, proteomics, protein structure analysis, next-generation sequencing, data mining and machine learning applications in bioinformatics, diseases and drug-related research. The conference is gathering bioinformatics researchers, scientists, practitioners, and attendants from many countries, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, Japan, Poland, Sri Lanka, the UK, and the USA. The participants are coming from various research institutions like universities, corporations, and government research agencies.

Each paper submitted to BICOB 2019 was peer-reviewed and evaluated by three to four reviewers who are usually members of the international program committee. Additionally, papers have been scanned by referees judging the originality, significance, technical contents, application contents and presentation style. BICOB 2019 includes a best paper award that will be presented during the conference banquet. Moreover, BICOB 2019 includes a journal special issue dedicated to extended versions of selected outstanding conference papers. The online conference management system Easychair.org was used to automate the workflow for submission, refereeing, and proceedings generation.

Finally, we would like to gratefully acknowledge the professional work of the international program committee and the sub-reviewers for contributing a tremendous amount of time. We owe great thanks to ISCA president and board of directors for the well-organized conference management. Also, we would like to thank the ISCA executive director for his help, guidance, support, and work. We also want to thank all presenters and attendees for actively contributing to the success of BICOB 2019 and look forward to excellent presentations and fruitful discussions at the meeting, which will undoubtedly broaden our professional horizons. All participants are invited to make new friends within the BICOB family. We sincerely wish every participant to have a delightful and beneficial time at BICOB 2019.