A major goal of computational molecular biology is to develop information processing or algorithmic accounts of biological questions such as:How is information encoded, stored, decoded, and used in biological systems? What sequence regularities (if any) are predictive of protein function? How can we precisely characterize the syntax (grammar) and semantics (meaning) of macromolecular sequences? How do hundreds of genes interact over time to orchestrate specific biological processes of interest?

Research in computational biology requires the development of sophisticated algorithms, software tools for data storage and retrieval, data integration, information extraction, exploratory data analysis and discovery (through data mining and data visualization), experiment design, using heterogeneous biological data sources, databases, knowledge bases, and ontologies. Design and development of such tools is a major goal of bioinformatics or computational biology.

WOB 2003 will be the meeting place for researchers and practitioners from industry and academia. Researchers and practitioners throughout Latin America are strongly encouraged to participate.

WOB 2003 will take place in Macaé, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on December 3-5, 2003. You are cordially invited to submit Bioinformatic-related work in any of the categories for participation.