GREAT PLAINS 2026: ISCB-Great Plains 2026 Scott Conference Center Omaha, NE, United States, September 28-30, 2026

Conference website	https://www.iscb.org/greatplains2026/home
Submission link	https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=greatplains2026
Proceedings Submission Deadline	May 1, 2026
Abstracts Submission Deadline	July 22, 2026
Late-Breaking Posters Submission Deadline	August 10, 2026

Welcome to the inaugural Great Plains Bioinformatics (ISCB-Great Plains) Conference! Great Plains Bioinformatics Conference is organized by the Nebraska University Regents Center for Biomedical Informatics Research and Innovation (CBIRI) to provide an interdisciplinary forum for the discussion of research findings and methods. An important goal for the conference is to foster long-term collaborative relationships and networking opportunities within the domain of computational approaches to biology. 

The conference will feature:

• Invited Keynote Speakers
• Tutorials and Workshops
• Oral Presentations
• Poster Presentations

Great Plains 2026 will be a dual channel distribution conference, offering both in-person and virtual attendance.  We hope you will join us at Scott Conference Center.  If you are unable, we hope you consider joining virtually on the conference's robust platform.

Submission Guidelines

All submission MUST select a presenting author. The presenting author MUST be marked as a corresponding author.

ISCB strongly prefers that submissions accepted for oral presentation be presented in-person at the conference venue. We understand that some presenters will have good reasons to avoid in-person attendance. ISCB will grant remote presentation options for reasons associated to maternity/paternity leave, care for a family member, personal/medical disability, sickness, or visa problems. Presenters are expected to attend in person unless genuine barriers exist. Inability implies circumstance, not choice. If unable to participate in-person you will need to request a waiver by writing presentationwaiver@iscb.org at the earliest opportunity.

General Submission Information

Submissions are invited for full papers, oral presentation abstracts, posters, and tutorials at the 1st Great Plains Bioinformatics Conference, an official conference of the International Society for Computational Biology. This is an invitation to scientists and professionals working in the fields of bioinformatics and computational biology to submit high quality original research papers for presentation at Great Plains 2026. Authors of papers and oral abstracts that are accepted to the conference will present their work at the conference (longer talks for full papers, shorter talks for the abstracts). Accepted full papers will be considered for inclusion in a special issue of Bioinformatics Advances.

Key dates: Click here

 

Full Paper for Oral Presentation

The Bioinformatics Advances Journal has committed to considering publication of a special issue for peer-reviewed articles from the conference.

In addition to the standard submission information, authors are expected to submit a PDF of the written article following the preparation guidelines as outlined by Bioinformatics Advances

Article submissions will close May 1, 2026, initial review will be done and authors will have an opportunity to update and prepare their final manuscripts. The final date for updates will be June 1, 2026. Bioinformatics Advances will have the opportunity to review the papers and provide comments. We will give authors one month to reply to comments in order to have the list of accepted articles at the end of June. Outstanding articles will be selected for featuring talks.

Authors are responsible for all publishing fees.

 

Abstracts for Oral Presentation or Poster

Abstracts for Oral Presentation submissions to Great Plains 2026 should be approximately 400 words and have no figures. Adding references to already published papers is recommended where appropriate. Submission deadline in Easychair is July 22, 2026.

Any abstracts submitted after the deadline will be included only at the discretion of the conference chairs, and will be eligible for poster presentations only. Please also note that we can only allow one abstract per presenting author.

In-Person Poster Hall: When preparing accepted posters please note that your printed poster should not exceed the following dimensions: 46 inches wide by 46 inches high. There will be 1or 2 poster per side on the each poster board. Additionally, we ask that you also follow the Virtual Poster Hall information below in addition to your in-person presentation. This ensures all posters are viewable to both in-person and virtual attendees thus providing more exposure to your work.

Virtual Poster Hall: When preparing accepted posters please note that your poster will need to be uploaded via the virtual platform portal in two formats - a PDF of the poster and a 5-7 minute flash talk video not to exceed 100MB. Poster portal information will be sent to all approved posters closer to the conference and after the notification deadline. All presentations MUST be uploaded on specific dates in September*. More specific dates will be given closer to the conference.

*Late Breaking posters will have a very short turn-around.

 

Tutorials

The purpose of the Tutorials program is to build knowledge and provide hands-on training in "cutting-edge" topics relevant to the bioinformatics field. Tutorials offer participants an opportunity to get an introduction to important established topics in bioinformatics, to learn about new areas of bioinformatics research, or to develop advanced skills in areas about which they are already knowledgeable.

Tutorials may include any form of presentation, such as brief talks or panel discussions, but should include hands-on exercises. Tutorials serve an educational function and are expected to provide a balanced perspective on a field of research. They should not focus on the presenters' own research or software, unless balanced with other tools in the same realm. However, tutorials on broadly used bioinformatics tools will be considered.

Tutorials are planned to be in-person at the Scott Center and will be held on September 28, 2026 from 9:00AM-12:00PM. (eg. tutorial presenters and participants should be fully in-person). There is a set limit on the number of in-person tutorials.

Tutorial proposals should contain the following information in a maximum of 4 pages:

• Title of Tutorial
• Abstract for Tutorial
• Learning Objectives for Tutorial
• Short promotional blurb for promotion if selected
• Maximum number of attendees participating
• Draft Schedule of the tutorial, including coffee breaks (half-day or full-day schedule) - Include draft talk titles or draft content to be covered in each section
• Identify and highlight blocks of hands-on content in your submission
• Draft List of Tutorial Speakers with titles and affiliations - including URL/Google Scholar/ORCID links
• Brief note on the teaching experience of the presenters (workshops, tutorials, and/or lectures)
• Intended audience and level - Describe the audience for which the Tutorial is aimed, and at which level it would be taught (e.g., beginner, experienced, or advanced).

The final proposal must be uploaded as a PDF file only.

List of Topics

• Computational Biology Algorithms
• Application of ML and LLMs in Biosciences
• Bioinformatics Education
• Cheminformatics and Drug Design
• Clinical & Health Informatics
• Databases, Ontologies & Biocuration
• Disease Models & Molecular Medicine
• Epidemiology & Biodiversity
• Evolutionary, Comparative Genomics & Phylogenetics
• Gene Regulation & Transcriptomics
• Genome Informatics
• Imaging Data Analysis
• Macromolecular Structure & Function
• Metagenomics
• Microbiome Informatics
• Network Biology
• Proteomics & Metabolomics
• Sequence Analysis
• Structural Bioinformatics
• Synthetic Biology
• Systems Modeling
• Text Mining & Natural Language Processing
• Visualization

Organizing Committee

Conference Co-Chairs

• Hesham Ali, University of Nebraska Omaha
• Dario Ghersi, University of Nebraska Omaha
• Babu Guda, University of Nebraska Medical Center

Proceedings Chairs

• Kate Cooper, University of Nebraska Omaha
• Jordan Rowley, University of Nebraska Medical Center

Poster Chairs

• TBA
• TBA

Venue

The conference will be held at Scott Conference Center in Omaha, Nebraska.

Program activities will begin on Monday, September 28, 2026 and conclude on Wednesday, September 30, 2026.

Contact

All questions about submissions should be emailed to events@iscb.org.