By Larry Hunter, PSB Co-Founder

The paper submission deadline for this year’s Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing (PSB, http://psb.stanford.edu) is coming up July 11, 2011. PSB is perhaps best known because it takes place in Hawaii every January, but that’s not the only reason it’s popular. Mixing the immediacy of a computer science conference with the PubMed-indexed publications that biologists prefer, PSB papers have among the highest impact of any in bioinformatics, with an H-index from 2006-2009 of 47, which is in the same range as key journals like PLoS Computational Biology and Briefings in Bioinformatics. The relatively small size (typically about 250 registrants), and intimate resort location mean that PSB is an opportunity to get face time with many of the most well-known scientists in our field.

One of the reasons PSB is still going strong in its 17th year is the competitive organizational scheme. Each year, the participants submit proposals for specific topics that form the basis for the half dozen or so sessions that define each conference. You should think about submitting one yourself next February! This competition to be selected as a critical new area has kept PSB the perfect place to find out about the latest emerging and hot topics in computational biology. This year, the sessions are:

• Identification of Aberrant Pathway and Network Activity from
  High-Throughput Data
• Intrinsically Disordered Proteins: Analysis, Prediction and Simulation
• Microbiome studies: Analytical Tools and Techniques
• Modeling host-pathogen interactions: Computational biology and bioinformatics for infectious disease research
• Personalized Medicine: from genotypes and molecular phenotypes towards computed therapy
• Text and knowledge mining for pharmacogenomics:
  Genotype-phenotype-drug relationships

Since presentation slots are mostly based on peer-reviewed papers, PSB provides an outstanding opportunity for a young researcher to get podium time at a major conference. The design of the conference includes plenty of scheduled time for open discussions, so everyone gets to participate. An open poster session means everyone can present research as well.

Although one might expect that a conference in a first class resort in Hawaii would be expensive, PSB has long-standing relationships with the local hotels that make the conference surprisingly affordable. Registration includes many conference-provided meals, keeping one of the major costs down. The hotel cost is $204 per night this year, plus tax, which is less than an average hotel room in Washington DC in 2010. The conference offers discount codes for airfares and rental cars as well. The conference also provides travel scholarships for those most in need. Submitting a paper to PSB before heading off to ISMB is a longstanding tradition in some bioinformatics labs. Even if you have never been to a PSB before, this is a great year to give it a try.