Submissions are open!

Key Dates

Submissions open: Sunday, 12 Jan 2025
Submissions close: Monday, 10 Feb 2025, 11:59PM UTC-12
Notification: Wednesday, 5 Mar 2025
Camera-ready deadline: Tuesday, 15 Apr 2025, 11:59PM UTC-12.
Workshop: Monday, 28 Apr 2025

Subject Areas

AI4NA aims to popularize AI applications for nucleic acids and introduce nucleic acid research challenges to the broader AI community.

The topics focus on applications of AI and novel AI methods for RNA and DNA research including, but not limited to:

• Nucleic Acid Structure and Function: RNA secondary and tertiary structure prediction, RNA function analysis, NA interactions
• Foundation and Generative Models for Nucleic Acids: (Multimodal) NA foundation models, Generative models for NAs
• Nucleic Acids in Therapeutics: NA drug design and discovery, NA modification, NA mutations
• Genomic Data Analysis: Genome reconstruction, Gene expression, Calling genetic variants, Pairwise and multiple NA sequence alignment, Single-cell transcriptomics and genomics

Other AI for Science Workshops

If you feel that your work is not a good thematic fit for the AI4NA workshop, consider submitting to one of the other AI for science workshops at ICLR 2025, such as:

• Towards Agentic AI for Science: Hypothesis Generation, Comprehension, Quantification, and Validation
• Generative and Experimental Perspectives for Biomolecular Design
• Machine Learning Multiscale Processes
• Tackling Climate Change with Machine Learning
• Machine Learning for Genomics Explorations

Submission Instructions

AI4NA considers two types of submissions:

• Full-Paper Submissions — AI4NA seeks for high-quality full-paper submissions that fit the workshop scope.
• Tiny-Paper Submissions — This year, ICLR is discontinuing the separate “Tiny Papers” track, and is instead requiring each workshop to accept short (3–5 pages in ICLR format, exact page length to be determined by each workshop) paper submissions, with an eye towards inclusion; see https://iclr.cc/Conferences/2025/CallForTinyPapers for more details. Authors of these papers will be earmarked for potential funding from ICLR, but need to submit a separate application for Financial Assistance that evaluates their eligibility. This application for Financial Assistance to attend ICLR 2025 will become available on https://iclr.cc/Conferences/2025/ at the beginning of February and close on March 2nd.

Full-Paper Submissions

Submitted full papers can be up to 6 pages long, not including Software and Data, References and Appendix. Any paper exceeding this length will automatically be rejected.

Authors may use as many pages of appendices (after the bibliography) as they wish, but reviewers are not required to read the appendix.

Do not include author information, author contributions or acknowledgments in your initial submission.

References must include page numbers whenever possible and be as complete as possible. Place multiple citations in chronological order.

Keep your abstract brief and self-contained, one paragraph and roughly 4-6 sentences. The title should have content words capitalized.

Authors are advised to use the Full-Paper AI4NA LaTeX style adjusted from the ICLR 2025 LaTeX style files obtainable at the Style Files and Templates section below.

Tiny-Paper Submissions

Write a paper with the same structure as seen in full papers, but with at most 3 pages of main text (including title and abstract). Software and Data, URM Statement, References, and Appendices sections do not count towards the page limit, but we do not recommend dissecting a regular-length paper into a Tiny Paper by moving the majority of the content into appendices. Any paper exceeding 3 pages of main text will automatically be rejected.

It is recommended to have 1-2 figures, 1 table, and 4-5 sections. But authors are free to use their own structure.

As the Tiny Papers is a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiative, we require every submission to have at least one key author (its first or last author) that meets the underrepresented minority (URM) criteria. Authors don't have to reveal how they qualify, and may just self-identify that they qualify.

Authors are advised to use the Tiny-Paper AI4NA LaTeX style adjusted from the ICLR 2025 LaTeX style files obtainable at the Style Files and Templates section below.

Despite the wide range of topics that could benefit from the Tiny-Paper format, we focus the type of submissions to be the following:

• An implementation and experimentation of a novel (not published elsewhere) yet simple idea, or a modest and self-contained theoretical result
• A follow-up experiment to or re-analysis of a previously published paper
• A new perspective on a previously published paper

Submissions have to include a "URM Statement" section which acklnowledges meeting the URM criteria. See the corresponding section in our provided Tiny-Paper LaTex teamplate for examples.

The URM criteria typically refers to someone whose age, gender, sexual orientation, racial or ethnic makeup, or identity is far from the majority members in the community. Based on the ICLR Guidelines, here is a list of examples of author characteristics which were typically underrepresented:

• Age: outside the range of 30-50 years
• Gender: does not identify as cis-male
• Sexual orientation: does not identify as heterosexual
• Geographical: not located in North America, Western Europe and UK, or East Asia
• Race: non-White
• Person with a disability

In addition, underprivileged researchers and first-time submitters also qualify:

• Underprivileged: not affiliated with a funded organization or team whose primary goal is research
• First-time submitters: have never submitted to ICLR or similar conferences

Double Blind Reviewing

Submissions will be double blind: reviewers cannot see author names when conducting reviews, and authors cannot see reviewer names. Having papers on ArXiv is allowed per the dual submission policy outlined below.

Authors can revise their paper as many times as needed up to the paper submission deadline. Changes to the paper will not be allowed while the paper is being reviewed.

We encourage submissions of:

• Novel research currently under submission.
• Promising work-in-progress results seeking feedback.
• Forward-thinking position papers initiating community discussion.

Style Files and Templates

To prepare your submission to AI4NA, please use the LaTeX style files provided here. Please do not alter the style in these templates – in particular, do not compress the paper format by reducing the vertical spaces or the page margins.

Submissions will be entirely electronic and done through OpenReview. If you are creating account on OpenReview, we recommend using an institutional email.

Full-Paper Overleaf Template	Tiny-Paper Overleaf Template	🚀 Submission Link

Attention If you select the Overleaf template, you will need to download the project zip file and upload it as a new project.

The Use of Large Language Models (LLMs)

The use of LLMs is allowed as a general-purpose assist tool. Authors and reviewers should understand that they take full responsibility for the contents written under their name, including content generated by LLMs that could be construed as plagiarism or scientific misconduct (e.g., fabrication of facts). LLMs are not eligible for authorship.

Camera-Ready Version

Accepted Full Papers can be up to 7 pages long, not including Software and Data, Author Contributions, Acknowledgments, References and Appendix, to allow authors to address reviewer comments.

Accepted Tiny Papers have to remain 3 pages long, not including Software and Data, Author Contributions, Acknowledgments, URM Statement, References and Appendix.

Presentation and Publication

Accepted papers will be showcased as posters during the workshop, with a few chosen for spotlight presentations based on reviewer feedbacks. At least one contributed talk slot (2 talks) will be dedicated to Tiny-Paper submission track. While the workshop is non-archival (only title and author names of accepted submissions will be posted publicly) and does not publish proceedings, authors of accepted papers will have the option to make their work available through the workshop website and AI4NA OpenReview Venue.

Author Benefits

Poster Presentation

All accepted submissions can submit a poster for in-person presentation. Authors of accepted papers will have the option to make their posters available through the workshop website for later download.

Contributed Talk

Some submissions will be selected for a contributed 10 minute talk.

Prize

Prizes will be awarded to select submissions, with the top submission receiving special recognition. Thanks to NVIDIA's sponsorship, the author of the best submission will be honoured with an NVIDIA RTX A6000 - 48GB!

Travel Grant and/or Registration

Authors from underrepresented communities or those requiring financial assistance, whose work is accepted into the workshop, can request support to attend AI4NA. Assistance will be provided based on the availability of funds.

Partnership with Nature Methods

AI4NA is partnering with Nature Methods to offer an opportunity for high-quality, novel submissions with strong biological validation for consideration in their journal.

Nature Methods is a leading journal from Nature Portfolio that focuses on publishing novel methods and significant enhancements to basic research techniques in the life sciences. Emphasizing practical relevance and the advancement of biological applications, the journal highlights method developments, performance comparisons, and resources for a broad, interdisciplinary research audience.

We are thrilled to collaborate with Nature Methods for ICLR 2025. Authors submitting to AI4NA who wish to have their work considered for potential publication in Nature Methods can indicate their interest after the acceptance notification. Following AI4NA’s acceptance notifications, selected authors will be invited to submit their manuscripts to Nature Methods. Nature Methods Editors will collaborate with AI4NA reviewers and additional expert reviewers to ensure a rigorous and high-quality evaluation.

Attending AI4NA

While submitting is free, if you are selected for a poster or a talk, you'll need to register at ICLR 2025 in order to attend the workshop.

You can also attend AI4NA without submitting. The workshop is open to anyone attending ICLR 2025 with a ticket for workshops.

Reviewers

We are looking for helping hands (all levels of seniority) in reviewing submissions. Reviewers will be listed on the website. You can find our reviewer form here!