This article is part of the supplement: Asia Pacific Bioinformatics Network (APBioNet) Sixth International Conference on Bioinformatics (InCoB2007) .

Introduction

Bioinformatics research in the Asia Pacific: a 2007 update

Shoba Ranganathan^1,2 , Michael Gribskov³ and Tin Wee Tan²

¹  Department of Chemistry and Biomolecular Sciences and Biotechnology Research Institute, Macquarie University, Sydney NSW 2109, Australia

²  Department of Biochemistry, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, 8 Medical Drive, Singapore 117597

³  Department of Biological Sciences, Purdue University, Lilly Hall of Life Sciences 915 W. State Street, West Lafayette IN 47907-2054, USA

author email corresponding author email

from Sixth International Conference on Bioinformatics (InCoB2007)
Hong Kong. 27–30 August 2007

BMC Bioinformatics 2008, 9(Suppl 1):S1doi:10.1186/1471-2105-9-S1-S1

Published:	13 February 2008

Abstract

We provide a 2007 update on the bioinformatics research in the Asia-Pacific from the Asia Pacific Bioinformatics Network (APBioNet), Asia's oldest bioinformatics organisation set up in 1998. From 2002, APBioNet has organized the first International Conference on Bioinformatics (InCoB) bringing together scientists working in the field of bioinformatics in the region. This year, the InCoB2007 Conference was organized as the 6^th annual conference of the Asia-Pacific Bioinformatics Network, on Aug. 27–30, 2007 at Hong Kong, following a series of successful events in Bangkok (Thailand), Penang (Malaysia), Auckland (New Zealand), Busan (South Korea) and New Delhi (India). Besides a scientific meeting at Hong Kong, satellite events organized are a pre-conference training workshop at Hanoi, Vietnam and a post-conference workshop at Nansha, China. This Introduction provides a brief overview of the peer-reviewed manuscripts accepted for publication in this Supplement. We have organized the papers into thematic areas, highlighting the growing contribution of research excellence from this region, to global bioinformatics endeavours.