The EMBnet International Conference 2020: Bioinformatics Approaches to Precision Research

In this paper, we first summarise the 2020 International Conference of EMBnet (The Global Bioinformatics Network) on “Bioinformatics Approaches to Precision Research”, held on 23th-24th September 2020, and then briefly introduce the main topics and contributions presented at the Conference and published in this supplement issue. The Conference’s main aim was to share the knowledge and scientific achievements of EMBnet members to prompt the cross-fertilisation of ideas and collaborations. The title reflects the type of contributions presented (20 in total), covering a wide range of cutting-edge research topics for which advanced bioinformatics methods and precision approaches are essential, and training in Bioinformatics. As for many other organisations, 2020 was the first year that the EMBnet Annual General Meeting was not in presence but ran on a virtual meeting platform because of the pandemic’s travel restrictions to moves. If this situation represented a limitation to our social activities, it allowed us to offer the possibility to attend the Conference to a larger number of researchers (i.e., 190 from 38 different countries). Among all registered people, 148 were following the conference presentations on both days. Under the authors’ permission, presentations were recorded and are available at the EMBnet Conference 2020 playlist on YouTube (https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVP2771lOozCHAOgVXBdqPW3oclEmzNIA), whereas the programme is available at the EMBnet Conference 2020 Google Drive folder (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wWqp_I5vf-1GUlKmbCUq45EDQ9LfbrpC/view)