Preface: Selected Papers from RECOMB 2016

This volume contains a selected subset of papers that appeared in the 20th Annual International Conference on Research in Computational Molecular Biology. RECOMB 2016 was held in Santa Monica, CA during April 17–21, 2016. This year, 35 papers were selected for oral presentation at RECOMB 2016 by the Program Committee (PC). Each of the 172 submissions consisted of a full paper, and was assigned to at least three PC members and reviewed with the help of many external reviewers. Following the initial reviews, final decisions were made after an extensive discussion of the submissions amongst the members of the PC. Continuing a long tradition, accepted papers were then invited for submission to a special issue of the Journal of Computational Biology (JCB).

The success of RECOMB depends on the effort, dedication, and devotion of many colleagues. I would like to thank the members of the Program Committee and the external reviewers who helped form a high-quality conference program and special issue selection. I especially thank the Organizing Committee Chair, Eleazar Eskin, for hosting the 2016 conference and marshaling the entire endeavor; Ting Chen for substantial organizational help; Danielle Everts for administrative support; the Steering Committee and especially its chair, Bonnie Berger, for support throughout the process; Teresa Przytycka (Program Chair of RECOMB 2015) for her guidance; and Donna Slonim, Fabio Vandin, Fengzhu Sun, Carl Kingsford, Alex Schoenhuth, Fabio Vandin and Barbara Engelhart for organizing various tracks and satellite meetings at the conference. Finally, on this occasion of the 20th anniversary of RECOMB, the entire RECOMB community thanks Sorin Istrail, Pavel Pevzner, and Michael Waterman for having the vision to start this conference series back in 1997.