Overview

The RECOMB conference series, founded in 1997, provides a scientific forum for communicating advances in computational biology and applications in molecular biology and medicine. The conference aims to bridge the computational, mathematical, statistical, and biological sciences, bringing together researchers, professionals, students and industrial practitioners from all over the world for interaction and exchange of new developments in all areas of bioinformatics and computational biology. The conference will feature keynote talks by leading scientists, presentations of peer-reviewed high-quality research papers, and poster sessions on latest research progress.

RECOMB 2027, the 31st Annual International Conference on Research in Computational Molecular Biology, will be held in Toronto, Canada, on May 17-20, 2027, with satellite meetings on May 15-16.

Scope

Papers reporting on original research (both theoretical and applied) in all areas of computational molecular biology are suitable for submission. RECOMB focuses on work with a substantial computational contribution or methodological advance: a new algorithm, model, statistical method, or theoretical result. Papers whose primary contribution is the application of existing methods to new data, or the assembly of a resource or pipeline without methodological novelty, are better suited to other venues.

Topics

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

  • Algorithms and theory for computational biology
  • Biological sequence algorithms, genome assembly, and pangenomics
  • Metagenomics and microbiome analysis
  • Gene regulation, transcriptomics, epigenomics and perturbation biology
  • Single-cell and spatial omics
  • Computational systems and network biology
  • Protein sequence, structure and function
  • Generative models for biomolecules
  • Computational drug discovery and binder design
  • RNA structure and function
  • Computational proteomics, proteogenomics and metabolomics
  • Population genetics and statistical genomics
  • Cancer genomics and tumor evolution
  • Evolution, phylogenetics, and comparative genomics
  • Computational immunology and antibody design
  • Representation learning for biology
  • Causal inference, uncertainty quantification and calibration for biological applications
  • Data privacy and security in biomedical research

Papers from adjacent areas, for example agentic workflows or other AI systems for biology, are welcome provided they adhere to the computational and algorithmic scope. Submissions that do not may be returned without full review.

Submission Guidelines

Submissions should represent original, previously unpublished work. The Program Committee will rigorously review submitted papers. Selected papers will be accepted for presentation at the conference. Please use the following submission link: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=recomb2027

All papers must be original and not simultaneously submitted to another journal or conference.

Reviewing is single-blind; authors are not required to anonymize their submissions.

To keep the reviewing load manageable, each author may be listed on at most 4 submissions. Submissions that would place any author above this limit will be desk-rejected.

Key Dates

  • Abstract submission deadline: 28 October 2026, 23:59 AoE
  • Full paper submission deadline: 4 November 2026, 23:59 AoE
  • Author notification: 22 December 2026
  • Final version due: TBA
  • Conference dates: 17-20 May 2027

Formatting Instructions for Paper Submission

  • Main paper format: All paper submissions must be in PDF format. The maximum length is 10 pages (Letter format), including all figures/tables and their captions, using a minimum font size of 10pt and 1-inch margins. An additional title page containing the paper title, author list, and abstract is permitted. The bibliography does not count toward the page limit. Submissions that violate the formatting requirement (e.g., by decreasing margins or font sizes) or exceed the page limit may be rejected without review.

  • Template: There is no specific template requirement beyond these guidelines. Authors may choose to use the Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) LaTeX template, as long as the above-mentioned page limit and margin requirements are respected.

  • Optional Appendix: If necessary, an Appendix can be submitted as Supplementary Material in a single PDF file. The Appendix should contain materials directly supporting the paper content. There is no page limit for the Appendix, but please note that reviewing the Appendix is at the discretion of the reviewers.

  • Source code availability: Importantly, if the paper involves the development of new software or analysis methods, the source code must be made publicly accessible via e.g. a GitHub repository, with a README file that is sufficiently documented by the submission deadline for reviewers to examine. The link to the public repository must be clearly indicated in the paper.

Abstract Registration

There is a mandatory abstract submission deadline on October 28th, 2026, 23:59 AoE, seven days prior to the full paper submissions deadline. This deadline allows the Program Committee to begin planning review assignments ahead of full paper submissions. After the abstract submission deadline has passed, new submissions will not be accepted, but authors can update the full paper submission before the paper submission deadline on November 4th, 2026, 23:59 AoE.

Please ensure the abstract registration closely aligns with full paper submission in terms of title, author list, and abstract content. “Placeholder” abstract registrations without meaningful descriptions will not be accepted. While minor updates to the abstract are allowed before the full paper submission deadline, any substantial changes to the title or abstract content risk being removed without consideration.

Publication

Accepted papers will be published on the conference website and indexed in DBLP; a separate proceedings volume will not be produced. Authors of accepted papers are required to post the final version of their paper on bioRxiv (or arXiv, where appropriate) by the final version due date.

Journal Publication

In past years, RECOMB has partnered with Cell Systems, Genome Research, and the Journal of Computational Biology. Authors of selected accepted papers were invited, but not required, to submit a revised version of their paper for a special issue in one of the partnering journals. Partner journal arrangements for RECOMB 2027 are being finalized and will be announced on the conference website. Separately, all accepted papers not published elsewhere will be offered publication in a special issue of the Journal of Computational Biology.

Preprint server submissions are allowed without restrictions. Submissions to peer-reviewed journals other than the partnering ones are also allowed, after the authors have received a decision on their initial submission, whether accepted or rejected.

Program Committee Members

Program Committee members may submit papers. Their submissions are reviewed under the same criteria as all others, subject to the per-author submission limit above, and conflicts of interest are managed through EasyChair.

Contact

All questions about submissions should be emailed to the Program Committee Chair Rohit Singh.

Information about poster submissions will be shared at a later date.