Join us in Grand Rapids, Michigan, United States for the 18th annual Great Lakes Bioinformatics Conference. The conference will begin on Monday, May 24, 2027 and conclude on Thursday, May 27, 2027.

GLBIO is organized by the Great Lakes Bioinformatics Consortium to provide an interdisciplinary forum for the discussion of research findings and methods. An important goal for the conference is to foster long term collaborative relationships and networking opportunities within the domain of computational approaches to biology.

The conference will feature:

• Invited Keynote Speakers
• Tutorials and Special Sessions
• Oral Presentations
• Poster Presentations

GLBIO 2027 will be a dual channel distribution conference, offering both in-person and virtual attendance. We hope you will join us at the Van Andel Institute. If you are unable, we hope you consider joining virtually on the conference's robust platform.

Submission Guidelines

Submissions are invited for tutorials, special sessions, full papers, oral presentation abstracts, and posters at the 18th Great Lakes Bioinformatics Conference, an official conference of the International Society for Computational Biology. This is an invitation to scientists and professionals working in the fields of bioinformatics and computational biology to submit high quality original research papers for presentation at GLBIO 2027. Authors of papers and oral abstracts that are accepted to the conference will present their work at the conference (longer talks for full papers, shorter talks for the abstracts). Accepted full papers will be considered for inclusion in a special issue of Bioinformatics Advances.

For a variety of reasons, ISCB/GLBC strongly prefers that scientific research accepted for oral presentation be presented in-person at the conference venue. We understand that some presenters will have valid reasons to avoid in-person attendance. ISCB will grant remote presentation options for reasons associated with maternity/paternity leave, care for a family member, personal/medical disability, sickness, financial hardship, or potential visa problems. If your research is accepted for oral presentation and you are unable to present in person, ISCB/GLBC requires notification at the time of acceptance and no later than April 19, 2027. You will be asked during your confirmation of participation to confirm your in-person participation. If unable to participate you will need to request a waiver by writing presentationwaiver@iscb.org

Special Sessions

GLBIO 2027 will have special sessions. The topic and structure of the sessions can vary but should be of interest to a substantial component of the bioinformatics research community. Sessions can be of three main types:

• Focused sessions or tutorials on specific research problems in computational biology and bioinformatics (e.g., cancer genomics, genome visualization tools, precision medicine, single cell omics, population genetics, regulatory genomics.)
• Software schools, aimed at providing training in new methods
• Activities focused on students and postdocs, or on non-academic career opportunities

Sessions can be considered as mini-symposia on timely topics, or a new emerging area presented by topic experts. Sessions should be organized around contributed talks, invited talks, or a combination of both types, or may not have any talks (e.g., software schools and activities involving students and postdocs in training activities). All proposals should be a minimum of 2 pages and no more than 6 pages in length. Research topic proposals should have the following structure:

• Title: Up to 20 words, preferably worded to pique delegates' interest.
• Topic: No more than one page describing the session, its research theme, and expected type of participants (undergraduates, graduate students, non-academic professionals, etc.). This section should also present a compelling argument for the importance and timeliness of the proposed session in the context of the bioinformatics community.
• Organizer(s): Provide a list of the organizers. This should include full name, title, affiliation, email address, and webpage, and qualifications to organize this session/tutorial for each.
• Session Details:
  • Length/Duration of the session - will it be a half-day or full-day with programme layout if possible
  • Describe the structure of the session (e.g., number of contributed talks, invited talks, or other activities)
  • Include a draft schedule showing how the session/topic will be organized including placement of invited talks, accepted talks, panel discussions, etc.
  • How presentations, as well as what types (full papers and/or abstracts), will be selected (invitation, call for submissions, etc.)
  • Include confirmed or possible speakers. This is not required, but may add weight to the proposal—indicate speakers who have already agreed to participate. NOTE: See Special Session Registration information for more details about compensation
  • Previous meetings of this, if applicable, with attendance statistics
  • Potential sources of sponsorship for the session(s) to offset the cost of the venue space, AV requirements and coffee breaks

The final proposal must be uploaded as a PDF file only. Submission deadline in Easychair is November 19, 2026.

Tutorials

The purpose of the Tutorials program is to build knowledge and provide hands-on training in "cutting-edge" topics relevant to the bioinformatics field. Tutorials offer participants an opportunity to get an introduction to important established topics in bioinformatics, to learn about new areas of bioinformatics research, or to develop advanced skills in areas about which they are already knowledgeable.

Tutorials may include any form of presentation, such as brief talks or panel discussions, but should include hands-on exercises. Tutorials serve an educational function and are expected to provide a balanced perspective on a field of research. They should not focus on the presenters' own research or software, unless balanced with other tools in the same realm. However, tutorials on broadly used bioinformatics tools will be considered.

Tutorials will be held in-person on May 27, 2027. (eg. tutorial presenters and participants should be fully in-person). There is a set limit on the number of in-person tutorials.

Tutorial proposals should be a minimum of 2 pages and no more than 6 pages in length, and should contain the following information:

• Title of Tutorial
• Abstract for Tutorial
• Learning Objectives for Tutorial
• Short promotional blurb for promotion if selected
• Maximum number of attendees participating
• Draft Schedule of the Tutorial, including coffee breaks (half-day or full-day schedule) - Include draft talk titles or draft content to be covered in each section
• Identify and highlight blocks of hands-on content in your submission
• Draft List of Tutorial Speakers with titles and affiliations - including URL/Google Scholar/ORCID links
• Brief note on the teaching experience of the presenters (workshops, tutorials, and/or lectures)
• Intended audience and level - Describe the audience for which the Tutorial is aimed, and at which level it would be taught (e.g., beginner, experienced, or advanced).

The final proposal must be uploaded as a PDF file only. Submission deadline in Easychair is November 19, 2026.

Full Paper for Oral Presentation

The Bioinformatics Advances Journal has committed to considering publication of a special issue for peer-reviewed articles from the conference.

In addition to the standard submission information, authors are expected to submit a PDF of the written article following the preparation guidelines as outlined by Bioinformatics Advances

Submission deadline in EasyChair is January 7, 2027, after which point reviews will be conducted. Bioinformatics Advances will have the opportunity to review the papers and provide comments. Outstanding articles will be selected for featuring talks.

Authors are responsible for all publishing fees.

Abstracts for Oral Presentation or Poster

Abstracts for Oral Presentation submissions to GLBIO 2027 should be approximately 400 words and have no figures. Adding references to already published papers is recommended where appropriate. Submission deadline in Easychair is March 11, 2027.

Any abstracts submitted after the deadline will be included only at the discretion of the conference chairs, and will be eligible for poster presentations only. Please also note that we can only allow one abstract per presenting author.

Authors can request consideration by special sessions in Easychair. Special Sessions for GLBIO 2027 are only considering abstracts. Please carefully review the information below before submitting in Easychair.

Session Titles:

• TBD

In-Person Poster Hall: When preparing accepted posters please note that your printed poster should not exceed the following dimensions: 46 inches wide by 46 inches high. There will be 1 or 2 poster per side on the each poster board. Additionally, we ask that you also follow the Virtual Poster Hall information below in addition to your in-person presentation. This ensures all posters are viewable to both in-person and virtual attendees thus providing more exposure to your work.

Virtual Poster Hall: When preparing accepted posters please note that your poster will need to be uploaded via the virtual platform portal in two formats - a PDF of the poster and a 5-7 minute flash talk video not to exceed 100MB. Poster portal information will be sent to all approved posters closer to the conference and after the notification deadline. All presentations MUST be uploaded on specific dates the week of May 4*. More specific dates will be given closer to the conference.

*Late Breaking posters will have a very short turn-around.

List of Topics

• Algorithms & Machine Learning
• Bioinformatics Education
• Biostatistics
• Cheminformatics
• Clinical & Health Informatics
• Databases, Ontologies & Biocuration
• Disease Models & Molecular Medicine
• Epidemiology & Biodiversity
• Evolutionary, Comparative Genomics & Phylogenetics
• Gene Regulation & Transcriptomics
• Genome Informatics
• Image Analysis
• Macromolecular Structure & Function
• Metagenomics
• Microbiome Informatics
• Network Biology
• Proteomics & Metabolomics
• Sequence Analysis
• Synthetic Biology
• Systems Modeling
• Text Mining & Natural Language Processing
• Visualization

Committees

Organizing Committee

Coming soon.

Steering Committee

• Bruce Aronow, Children's Hospital Medical Center, University of Cincinnati
• Gary Bader, University of Toronto
• Robert Blumenthal, University of Toledo
• Serdar Bozdag, University of Northern Texas
• Sarath Chandra Janga, Indiana University-Perdue University
• Maria Chikina, University of Pittsburgh
• Sorin Draghici, Wayne State University
• Dannie Durand, Carnegie Mellon University
• Bruno Gaeta, University of New South Wales (Ex Officio)
• Anthony Gitter, University of Wisconsin-Madison
• Daisuke Kihara, Purdue University
• Dan Knights, University of Minnesota
• Jundong Liu, Ohio University
• Tijana Milenkovic, University of Notre Dame
• Chad Myers, University of Minnesota
• Layla Oesper, Carleton College
• Aida Ouangraoua, Universite de Sherbrooke
• John Parkinson, Hospital for Sick Children
• Catherine Putonti, Loyola University
• Predrag Radivojac, Northeastern University
• Sushmita Roy, University of Wisconsin-Madison
• Russell Schwartz, Carnegie Mellon University
• Lonnie Welch, Ohio University
• Jeff Xia, McGill University
• Feng Yue, Northwestern University

Additional Support

• Diane Kovats, ISCB, Chief Executive Officer
• Bel Hanson, ISCB, Senior Director of Operations and Programs
• Justine Morris, ISCB, Coordinator of Operations and Programs
• Seth Munholland, ISCB, Lead Technologist
• Mallory Wiper, ISCB, Marketing & Communications Director
• Nina-Mari Grobler, ISCB, Executive Assistant

Venue

The conference will be held at the Van Andel Institute in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Program activities will begin on Monday, May 24, 2027 and conclude on Thursday, May 27, 2027.

Contact

All questions about submissions should be emailed to events@iscb.org.