Guest editorial for the 25th International Conference on Genome Informatics (GIW/ISCB-Asia 2014)

The International Conference on Genome Informatics, known as "GIW", is one of the longest running annual conferences in bioinformatics or computational biology. GIW has played an important role in the development of the bioinformatics community in the Asia-Pacific region since its establishment in 1990. The first GIW was held as a Japanese workshop (called the Genome Informatics Workshop) in Tokyo, Japan, in 1990. It has been held annually since then, switching from a domestic conference to an international one in 1993 and updating its official name to the current "International Conference on Genome Informatics" in 2001. GIW was held in Japan (Tokyo or Yokohama) until 2006, but since then GIW has been held in various locations in the Asia-Pacific region. The 18th GIW was held in Singapore in 2007. In the following years, GIW was held in Gold Coast, Australia (2008); Yokohama, Japan (2009); Hangzhou, China (2010); Busan, Korea (2011); Tainan, Taiwan (2012); and again in Singapore in 2013. With its long history and track record in attracting state-of-the art bioinformatics research in general, and especially algorithmic work, GIW is arguably not only the top bioinformatics conference in the Asia-Pacific region, but also one of the most important worldwide. Now solidly established as an international conference, GIW will be revisiting its birthplace, Tokyo, for 2014 and 2015.