This proposal requests support for the Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing (PSB) for the years 1999, 2000 and 2001. PSB'99 will be held January 3-9, at the Mauni Lani, Big Island, Hawaii. PSB'99 will be the 7th meeting in this series, the most recent of which attracted 193 participants from throughout the world (see www.cgl.ucsf.edu/psb98). Along with RECOMB and Intelligent Systems in Molecular Biology (ISMB), PSB is one of the 3 major recurring international meetings in the area of computational biology, with a strong emphasis in the data-rich area of molecular biology. The organizers of ISMB and PSB recently joined forces and formed the International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB), with one going being improved coordination and cross-fertilization of these two meetings. Likewise, the combined group is extending invitations to the organizers of RECOMB to join in this effort. Given the rapid growth of information relating to biological structure, function, and genomes, we believe there is room and need for 3 meetings in this area. Although ISMB, PSB and RECOMB re largely overlapping in purpose and score, there are distinctions. PSB employs a participant-initiated format, has an emphasis on tool development, and seeks to develop a focus towards the Pacific Rim. PSB has achieve a good balance between scientists trained primary in computer science and those trained primary in the biological or physical sciences. Finally, starting in the spring of 1998, the PSB proceedings will be indexed by Medline (including previous years). Also, present and past proceedings are available in electronic form at our website (www.cgl.ucsf.edu/psb). These developments greatly enhance the visibility and accessibility of the resulting proceedings and therefore the value of these meetings.
