The Institute of Integrative Systems Biology (I2SysBio), a joint centre of the CSIC and the University of Valencia, held its Second Public-Private Collaboration Workshop under the title 'Emerging Paradigms in Computational Biology: AI and quantum', a meeting that brought together more than 70 participants, including representatives from more than 20 companies in the scientific-technological and healthcare sectors, as well as researchers from I2SysBio and other institutions.

With this conference, I2SysBio seeks to consolidate a space for dialogue between the academic and productive sector, where current challenges in computational biology can be shared and possible joint solutions that could have a real impact on the production system can be explored.

The conference began with a welcome from the director of I2SysBio, Gustavo Gómez, who thanked the attendees for their participation and emphasised the importance of these conferences for ‘generating knowledge aimed not only at solving great enigmas, but also at advancing towards useful knowledge that has a real impact on the productive system and generates wealth for society’.

Throughout the morning, there were several short presentations by experts from academia and business on the current applications of computational biology in the fields of biotechnology, biomedicine and disruptive technologies.

After a networking break, participants divided into three simultaneous thematic roundtables focusing on health, quantum computing and the search for collaboration opportunities, moderated respectively by the Carlos Simón Foundation, Quilimanjaro Quantum Tech and Viromii. At the same time, a visit to the institute's Data Processing Centre (DPC) was organised.

The meeting also included the conference “Quantum Computing, what it is and why it matters”, given by Arnau Riera, from Qilimanjaro Quantum Tech, and concluded with a cocktail reception to encourage informal exchanges among attendees.

The event was supported by Moldrug, ProtoQsar and BMKGene, companies that actively participated by setting up information stands at the institute. This forum was also made possible thanks to funding from the Valencian Agency for Innovation (IVACE+i) through the talent promotion project Innovation Agent INNTA1/2024/3.