Despite the remarkable unity of the basic components of the living world (DNA, RNA, the genetic code), we are probably still not aware of the diversity of genome structures nor of the diversity of means genomes use to evolve. Rearrangements, gene transfers, duplications, transposable elements, single nucleotide substitutions, repetitions, insertions, deletions, have been successively discovered and modeled in the XXth century. They are used to document the evolutionary history of life on earth and to understand adaptation processes.

By comparing complete or partial genomes, it is possible to infer a great amount of new biological information concerning gene function, evolutionary relationship between species, ancestral genome organization, mechanisms of evolution and variation in mutation rates among the different branches of the tree of life. This has important consequences such as variations on the genetic and physiological specificities of species, with far-reaching applications ranging from evolutionary theory right through to drug discovery and personal medicine. Each problem, each type of mutation, has its own model and set of algorithmic and statistical tools to accurately predict the deep past of our molecules. Due to the dimension of the available data, efficient computational tools are imperative to accomplish these tasks.

Contributions to the conference are related to a variety of fields, including but not limited to: genome evolution, comparative tools for assembly, genome annotation, comparison of functional networks, genomic variation in humans and model organisms and cancer evolutionary genomics. In 2016, the RECOMB-CG workshop will be at its 14th edition, and it has already made a lasting impact in the field of computational comparative genomics

The conference will be held at the ITHQ "Institut de Tourisme et d'hôtellerie du Québec, Montréal, Québec, Canada.