Foreword: Advances in Computational Systems Bioinformatics

. The confer-ence was held in August 2009 at Stanford, California. In selecting papers for thisSpecial Issue, we were most interested in works that present novel solutions to, orin-depth analyses of, difficult biological problems using bioinformatics techniques.We also tried to ensure that the selected papers cover a broad range of topics. Allselected papers have been expanded significantly over the versions in the confer-ence proceedings, and have gone through the rigorous review process of the