Methods and Algorithms for Genome Evolution

David Sankoff is known as one of the founding father of molecular bioinformatics and computational biology. As stated by Pavel Pevzner in a recent book, “He (M. Waterman) and David Sankoff are responsible for transforming bioinformatics from a ‘stamp collection’ of ill-defined problems into a rigorous discipline with important biological applications”. Without such transformation “bioinformatics would never be able to attract the top talent in computer science and statistics or the other members of the generation of talented young scientists who are working in the field today”. Among other achievements, David contributed to the early introduction of dynamic programming in computational biology. David has the reputation to ask the right questions, to be visionary, and to have laid the foundations of numerous fields in comparative genomics, such as sequence alignment, RNA folding, phylogenetics, genome rearrangements and genome organization evolution.

David Sankoff published his first paper in 1963, as an undergraduate student at McGill University, and we will celebrate his 50th birthday of research contribution by gathering together a large group of prominent senior and junior researchers from the mathematical, computer science, genomics and life sciences communities working in comparative genomics, phylogenetics and related fields. The goal of this conference will not only be to celebrate and reflect on David’s unique research contribution and on its impact, but also to share the latest developments in comparative genomics and to discuss about the challenges that our community faces and will face in the future to unravel the intricacies of complex biological datasets and questions.