Giuliano Preparata (Rome 1942 - Frascati 2000) was a brilliant theoretical physicist who graduated in Rome. He worked in several highest-rank universities including Princeton, Harvard, New York University and others. He has devoted much of his scientific activities to high-energy physics bringing relevant contributions to the construction of the Standard Model, the new synthesis of sub-nuclear interactions.

Giuliano Preparata had also a strong interest in topics related to Biology, and gave important and enlightening contributions to the field of Bioinformatics. The Italian Society of Bioinformatics starts each year its Annual Conference with the Preparata Lecture, delivered by a distinguished keynote speaker. Over the years, the Society, thanks to the contribution of the Preparata Foundation, also delivered Travel Grants to young researchers for the participation to BITS Annual Conferences.

The first annual Preparata Lecture was in 2004, and every year the BITS select a Preparata Lecture choosing a keynote among the invited speakers of the BITS annual meeting.

In the following the Preparata Lecture organized during the BITS Annual Meeting:

Franco Preparata - Brown University, USA - BITS2004 - Padova

David Lipman, NCBI (National Center for Biotechnology Information), Bethesda, USA - BITS2005, Milano

Alfonso Valencia, Spanish National Cancer Research Center, Madrid, Spain - BITS2006, Bologna

Roderic Guigo, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcellona - BITS2007, Napoli

Eske Willerslev, Centre for Ancient Genetics, Biological Institute e Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen - ECCB08/BITS2008 Cagliari

Alex Bateman, Sanger Center, Hinxton, UK - BITS2009 - Genova

Cecilia Saccone - Univerisita' di Bari, BITS2010 - Bari

Arthur Lesk - Penn State University, PA, USA, BITS2011 - Pisa

Eugene Myers - BITS2012, Catania

Mauno Vihinen, Lund University Cancer Centre, BITS2013 Udine

Ewan Birney, Joint Associate Director and Senior Scientist at EBI, BITS2014 Roma

Charles Cantor - Boston University, Boston USA - BITS2015 Milano

Janusz Bujnicki - IIMCB in Warsaw - BITS2016 Salerno

Andrew C.R. Martin - University of Oxford - BITS2017 Cagliari

Stefano Gustincich - SISSA and IIT - BITS2018 Torino

Pedro Beltrao - EMBL-EBI, Cambridge UK - BITS2021 Virtual conference

Giorgio Valle  - University of Padua - BITS2022 Verona

Silvio Tosatto - University of Padova - BITS2023 Bari

Nicola Segata - University of Trento and European Institute of Oncology, Milan - BITS2024 Trento