CIBB 2023: Special session on Distributed computing in bioinformatics and computational biology Call for papers September 6-7, 2023, Padua, Italy Website: https://cibb2023.dei.unipd.it/call-for-special.html Distributed computing systems have become pivotal in the analysis of bioinformatics data, especially for the investigation of complex biological problems that require intense computational workloads. The usage of distributed computing systems like Apache Spark, in fact, might allow scientific discoveries on bioinformatics data that otherwise would be impossible if the analyses were performed on personal computers. Our special session on "Distributed computing in bioinformatics and computational biology" aims at calling for researchers able to show the potential and the advance of distributed computing resources to make accurate computational analyses in biological datasets. With this special session, we would like to gather scientific contributions aimed at optimizing the usage of distributed computing systems and resources in any bioinformatics, genomics, and proteomics context. The results presented in these studies would be useful and helpful both for the distributed computing experts and for inexperienced users approaching this subject for the first time. *Topics of interest include:* - - Distributed computing systems in genomics and proteomics - - Bioinformatics projects enhanced by distributed computing platforms - - Optimisation of distributed computing systems - - Application of machine learning methods to bioinformatics datasets enhanced through distributed computing - - Protocols for efficient usage of distributed computing systems *Special session organizers:* - Davide Chicco <https://sites.google.com/view/davidechicco> , University of Toronto, Canada - Umberto Ferraro Petrillo <https://sites.google.com/site/umbfer/home> , Sapienza Università di Roma, Italy - Giuseppe Cattaneo <https://docenti.unisa.it/000763/en/curriculum> , Università di Salerno, Italy - Raffaele Giancarlo <https://pure.unipa.it/en/persons/raffaele-giancarlo-4> , Università di Palermo, Italy - Lorenzo Di Rocco <https://phd.uniroma1.it/web/LORENZO-DI-ROCCO_nP1581944_IT.aspx> , Sapienza Università di Roma, Italy - Giorgio Grani <https://research.uniroma1.it/researcher/cf18984a5eefd5ae99d20c71f239ff7d28a42eb59996787cc2dded30> , Sapienza Università di Roma, Italy *Important Dates* - Short paper submission: April 30, 2023 - - Acceptance/rejection notification: June 9, 2023 - - Camera-ready short paper submission: June 23, 2023 - - Conference: September 6-8, 2023 *Proceedings* The proceedings will not be indexed on Scopus, but, after the conference, the authors of all the accepted short papers presented at the conference will be invited to submit an extended version of their manuscripts to the conference proceedings book in Springer Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics (LNBI) <https://www.springer.com/series/5381>, or to a supplement in a journal such as BMC Bioinformatics <https://bmcbioinformatics.biomedcentral.com/> or BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making <https://bmcmedinformdecismak.biomedcentral.com/>. -- Lorenzo Di Rocco PhD Student Department of Statistical Sciences La Sapienza - University of Rome P.le Aldo Moro, 5 00185 - Rome, Italy e-mail: lorenzo.dirocco@uniroma1.it