The "Bioinformatics Portuguese League" (Liga Portuguesa de Bioinformática - LPB) is a national contest on the scope of Bioinformatics and Computational Biology. The LPB has been created for higher education students with interest in those areas of knowledge and the national Bioinformatics community. It promotes and benefits the integration of future researchers and professionals on Bioinformatics and encourages active learning and improvement of skills in that field. The LPB was inspired by its Brazilian counterpart (League of Brazilian Bioinformatics - LBB) that, at the time, had already completed two editions. One of the promoters from the LBB was involved in the organizing committee, and two other colleagues were part of the Scientific Committee.
The contest was divided into 3 phases. The first phase consisted of a set of 30 questions on the subjects of Biology, Computer Science and Bioinformatics. The second phase consisted of 5 Computational Biology challenges. The three highest scoring teams were qualified for the third, and last, phase. Which consisted of the development of an Investigation Project. The final results were presented by each team during the Bioinformatics Open Days event, being also questioned by the Committee, who then evaluated the different teams. The prizes were delivered in the closing session of the BOD.
At LPB we had 61 people enrolled in 24 teams. Regarding the level of programming, the average was 3 on a scale from 1 (low) to 5 (high). We reached the main regions of Portugal, with the three finalist teams coming from Lisbon, Coimbra and Porto. At the end of the third phase, the final ranking was:
1st: pupinada (University of Lisbon)
2nd: Roosters (University of Coimbra)
3rd: Asmalfarics (University of Porto)
The event had two main sponsors: the ELIXIR through the ELIXIR staff exchange TRDABEB and the OLISSIPO project.
