The “Computational Modeling in Biology” Network (COMBINE) is an initiative to coordinate the development of the various community standards and formats in systems biology, synthetic biology and related fields. COMBINE 2026 will be a workshop-style event hosted at Keele University, UK.

Submission Guidelines for Breakout Sessions and Tutorials

All attendees can suggest breakout sessions for hacking and/or detailed discussions of certain aspects of one or several of the COMBINE standard(s), metadata and semantic annotations (format-specific or overarching), application and implementations of the COMBINE standards, or any other topic relevant for the COMBINE community. The topics for those breakout sessions, and the time slots which would suit their communities can be submitted via the link above. Note, breakout session organisers will be responsible for creating and hosting their own online sessions, if required.

Submission Guidelines for Talks, Lightning Talks and Posters

Requests for a short talk, lightning talk (5 min max.) and/or poster can be submitted via the link above. This link should also be used to submit the title and abstract for invited talks. Please use several forms if you want to submit abstracts on different topics. The submission deadline is outlined above. Talks will take place during the community session and posters will be displayed throughout the meeting.

List of Topics

• Data exchange, pipelines and model standards for systems and synthetic biology
• Visualization and graphical notation standards for systems and synthetic biology
• Standards for sharing and analysing biological pathway data
• Standards for computational biological models and modelling support
• Metadata description and model annotation in COMBINE standard formats
• Implementation of COMBINE standards in tools, databases and other resources
• Integrated model and data management for systems and synthetic biology
• Standardization of Artificial Intelligence approaches in biological modelling
• Emerging standardization needs and multicellular modeling
• Community aspects of COMBINE

Invited Speakers

• Geoff Baldwin, Centre for Engineering Biology, Imperial College, UK
• Rahuman Sheriff, European Bioinformatics Institute, European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL-EBI), UK
• Gary Mirams, Centre for Mathematical Medicine & Biology, University of Nottingham, UK

Venue

COMBINE 2026 will take place at Keele University in Newcastle under Lyme, Staffordshire, ST5 5NS, United Kingdom. The conference will be held at the Smart Innovation Hub (also known as Innovation Centre 6).

Contact

All questions about submissions should be emailed to Goksel Misirli (g.misirli@keele.ac.uk)