Guest Editorial for the International Conference on Genome Informatics (GIW 2013)

Abstract

popularly known as "GIW," is probably one of the oldest, if not actually the oldest annual, regular conference in computational biology that survived all turns of the tempestuous development of this field of research [1]. GIW has provided a friendly forum where scientists, especially those from East Asia, could exchange and publish their research findings. Whereas GIW had more the role of a regional incubator in the early years, it has recently become one of the important, truly international conference venues in the bioinformatics field for scientific exchange. It provides unique opportunities to bridge theory and experiment, academia and industry, and science from the East and the West. GIW2013 was the 24th GIW and was the second time this conference was held in Singapore [2].Maybe, the request for a consistent, predictive biological theory as physicists have been used to for many decades might be premature. To note, about 50 percent of all eukaryote genes lack even tentative functional characterizations and, most likely, not even half of the biomolecular mechanisms are known [3]. Despite full genome sequencing, even a stable reference proteome cannot be deduced [4]. Nevertheless, the large-scale experimental techniques, most prominently nucleic acid sequencing, open new opportunities and, for carefully selected questions, interesting and important insights can be deduced from this data that can even reach out into biomedical and biotechnological applications.The following nine papers have been selected from GIW2013 for inclusion in this special section: "Coupling Graphs, Efficient Algorithms and B-cell Epitope Prediction" by L.