International Conference on Bioinformatics


The International Conference on Bioinformatics is a scientific conference on bioinformatics aimed at scientists in the Asia Pacific region. It has been held annually since 2002. Originally organised by coordination between the Asia Pacific Bioinformatics Network and the Thailand National Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology in 2002, the meeting has since been the flagship conference of the APBioNet, where APBioNet's Annual General Meeting is held.

Scientific publications

Since 2006, InCoB has been partnering with BMC Bioinformatics to publish an InCoB Special Conference Issue of top papers presented at the conference. In 2007, an additional tie-up with the Bioinformation journal was established in addition to the BMC Bioinformatics issue.

Technological placeshifting

Since 2007, InCoB held in Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, has been placeshifted in an additional location in a developing country venue, namely the Vietnam National University, Hanoi through the advanced videoconferencing project of APAN and TEIN2. In 2015, InCoB was organised jointly with the International Conference on Genome Informatics in an attempt to increase effectiveness and scalability.

Satellite training workshops

Since 2007, at the VNU site coordinated by the Institute of Biotechnology Hanoi, InCoB coordinated with the International Union for Biochemists and Molecular Biologists, the Federation of Asian Oceanian Biochemists and Molecular Biologists and APBioNet to hold a two-week bioinformatics training course with course faculty from Karolinska Institutet, NCBI and National University of Singapore, supported by the S* Alliance for Bioinformatics Education and BioSlax, a software development project hosted at NUS as part of an ASEAN SubCommittee on Biotechnology project. This collaboration with IUBMB and FAOBMB continues in 2008 with a bioinformatics education workshop in Taipei, Taiwan, where the main meeting of InCoB 2008 will be situated.

Past and present conferences

ConferenceLocationHosting Institution
InCoB 2002Bangkok, Thailand
InCoB 2003Penang, Malaysia
InCoB 2004Auckland, New Zealand
InCoB 2005Busan, South Korea
InCoB 2006Delhi, India
InCoB 2007Hong Kong, China; Hanoi, VietnamHong Kong University of Science and Technology
InCoB 2008Taipei, Taiwan
InCoB 2009Singapore
InCoB 2010Tokyo, Japan
InCoB 2011Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
InCoB 2012Bangkok, ThailandNational Science and Technology Development Agency, BIOTEC, KMUTT
InCoB 2013Taicang, China
InCoB 2014Brighton-Le-Sands, New South Wales, Australia
InCoB 2015Odaiba, Japan
InCoB 2016Singapore
InCoB 2017Shenzhen, ChinaTsinghua University
InCoB 2018New Delhi, IndiaJawaharlal Nehru University
InCoB 2019Jakarta, IndonesiaUniversitas YARSI
InCoB 2020Asia-Pacific and BeyondVirtual