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This volume compiles accepted contributions for the 2nd Edition of the Colombian Computational Biology and Bioinformatics Congress CCBCOL, after a rigorous review process in which 54 papers were accepted for publication from 119 submitted contributions. Bioinformatics and Computational Biology are areas of knowledge that have emerged due to advances that have taken place in the Biological Sciences and its integration with Information Sciences. The expansion of projects involving the study of genomes has led the way in the production of vast amounts of sequence data which needs to be organized, analyzed and stored to understand phenomena associated with living organisms related to their evolution, behavior in different ecosystems, and the development of applications that can be derived from this analysis.

The growth in the Bioinformatics and Computational Biology fields over the last few years has been remarkable and the trend is to increase its pace. In fact, the need for computational techniques that can efficiently handle the huge amounts of data produced by the new experimental techniques in Biology is still increasing driven by new advances in Next Generation Sequencing, several types of the so called omics data and image acquisition, just to name a few. The analysis of the datasets that produces and its integration call for new algorithms and approaches from fields such as Databases, Statistics, Data Mining, Machine Learning, Optimization, Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence. Within this scenario of increasing data availability, Systems Biology has also been emerging as an alternative to the reductionist view that dominated biological research in the last decades. Indeed, Biology is more and more a science of information requiring tools from the computational sciences. In the last few years, we have seen the surge of a new generation of interdisciplinary scientists that have a strong background in the biological and computational sciences. In this context, the interaction of researchers from different scientific fields is, more than ever, of foremost importance boosting the research efforts in the field and contributing to the education of a new generation of Bioinformatics scientists. PACBB‘11 hopes to contribute to this effort promoting this fruitful interaction. PACBB'11 technical program included 50 papers from a submission pool of 78 papers spanning many different sub-fields in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology. Therefore, the conference will certainly have promoted the interaction of scientists from diverse research groups and with a distinct background (computer scientists, mathematicians, biologists). The scientific content will certainly be challenging andwill promote the improvement of the work that is being developed by each of the participants.

The fields of Bioinformatics and Computational Biology have been growing steadily over the last few years boosted by an increasing need for computational techniques that can efficiently handle the huge amounts of data produced by the new experimental techniques in Biology. This calls for new algorithms and - proaches from fields such as Data Integration, Statistics, Data Mining, Machine Learning, Optimization, Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence. Also, new global approaches, such as Systems Biology, have been emerging replacing the reductionist view that dominated biological research in the last d- ades. Indeed, Biology is more and more a science of information needing tools from the information technology field. The interaction of researchers from diff- ent scientific fields is, more than ever, of foremost importance and we hope this event will contribute to this effort. IWPACBB'10 technical program included a total of 30 papers (26 long papers and 4 short papers) spanning many different sub-fields in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology. Therefore, the technical program of the conference will certainly be diverse, challenging and will promote the interaction among computer scientists, mathematicians, biologists and other researchers. We would like to thank all the contributing authors, as well as the members of the Program Committee and the Organizing Committee for their hard and highly valuable work. Their work has helped to contribute to the success of the IWAPCBB'10 event. IWPACBB'10 wouldn't exist without your contribution.

The success of Bioinformatics in recent years has been prompted by research in mole- lar biology and medicine in initiatives like the human genome project. The volume and diversification of data has increased so much that it is very hard if not impossible to analyze it by human experts. The analysis of this growing body of data, intensified by the development of a number of high-throughput experimental techniques that are generating the so called'omics'data, has prompted for new computational methods. New global approaches, such as Systems Biology, have been emerging replacing the reductionist view that dominated biology research in the last decades, requiring the coordinated efforts of biological researchers with those related to data analysis, mathematical modelling and computer science. Computational methods have been helping in tasks related to knowledge discovery, modelling and optimization tasks. This workshop brings the opportunity to discuss applications of Bioinformatics and Computational Biology exploring the interactions between computer scientists, bio- gists and other scientific researchers. The IWPACBB technical program includes 29 papers (23 long papers and 6 short papers) selected from a submission pool of 51 papers, from 9 different countries. We thank the excellent work of the local organization members and also from the members of the Program Committee for their excellent reviewing work. October 2008 Juan M. Corchado Juan F. De Paz Miguel P. Rocha Florentino Fernández Riverola Organization