The Department of Biochemistry conducted workshop on Computational Biology in association with the Conference of Islamic Countries (COMSTECH). Candidates were selected from the Middle East. Tutors are from the EMBL-European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, University of Cambridge, UK; Queensland Institute of Medical Research, Australia; Northcott Neuroscience Laboratory ANZAC Research Institute, Australia and Pharmacogenomics & Comparative Genomics Unit, Bioinformatics Department, Centro de Investigacion Principe Felipe c/ep Avda, Spain.   The course focused on the applications of Computational Biology in various areas of biological sciences. The main objectives of the workshop were to: Provide an insight into the newly emerging field of computational biology Upgrade knowledge and refine skills in the field. Provide a forum for the participants to exchange views and experiences.  The topics includes : Introduction to Bioinformatics (Ensembl Browser); Communication and analysis of biological data; Basic DNA Sequence Analysis; Sequence comparison; Basic concepts: identity, homology and mutation matrices; Principles of Sequence Similarity; Thorough explanation of the basis for sequence comparison; Determining Protein Structure from Sequence using Computational Approaches; The Machine Learning Approach; Automation of workflow; Database basics: manipulation, survey of data sets; Small and large scale expression analysis; Genome data analysis; Phylogenetic Analysis; Molecular Databases; Scoring Matrices; Linkage Analysis and Micro-array analysis. The workshops are a great opportunity to learn about advances in the Computational Biology Field and to meet scientist and professionals from other countries and universities.