2007 GECCO

The 2007 Genetic and Evolutionary Computing Conference (GECCO) will be held July 7-11 University College London in London, England. This is one of my favorite conferences because it covers computer science methods that are inspired by biology and covers their application to biological problems. Thus, GECCO is an example of truly interdisciplinary conference with a bidirectional exchange of ideas between computer scientists and biologists. I particularly enjoy the conference because the contributers and participants are not afraid to challenge the traditional problem-solving paradigm. Science can not move forward without exploring the fringes of different disciplines. Genetic epidemiology has much to gain from the ideas presented at GECCO.

I am chairing (with Clare Bates Congdon) the Biological Applications track at GECCO in 2007. The call for papers can be found here. Papers are welcome on any topic that combines genetic and evolutionary computing methods with biological or biomedical problem-solving. The paper submission deadline is January 17, 2007.

I will also be giving a tutorial on bioinformatics at GECCO in addition to organizing and chairing the SoftGEC workshop mentioned in my previous post. If you can't make the paper submission deadline for the regular tracks I recommend you explore submitting something for one of the many workshops. The deadline for the workshops papers is March 23, 2007. The workshops usually provide a more informal forum for presenting your work and getting critical feedback. Note that my SoftGEC workshop will only have invited speakers this year.

I highly recommend the conference if you are interested in computational methods and genetics. If you are new to genetic and evolutionary computing I recommend you attend the free tutorials and workshops the first two days of the conference (July 7 and 8). The tutorials are usually very good. See you in London!