Biological and biomedical research are increasingly driven by experimental techniques that challenge our ability to analyze, process, and extract meaningful knowledge from the underlying data. The impressive capabilities of next-generation sequencing technologies, along with novel and constantly evolving types of omics data technologies, have created a complex set of challenges for the growing fields of bioinformatics and computational biology. The analysis of the datasets produced and their integration call for new algorithms and approaches from fields such as databases, statistics, data mining, machine learning, optimization, computer science, and artificial intelligence. Clearly, biology is becoming more of a science of information and requires tools from the computational sciences. In recent years, we have seen the rise of a new generation of interdisciplinary scientists with a strong background in both biological and computational sciences. In this context, the interaction of researchers from different scientific fields is more important than ever in boosting research efforts and contributing to the education of a new generation of bioinformatics scientists. The PACBB'17 conference aimed to contribute to this effort and promote fruitful interaction, with a technical program that included 39 papers spanning various sub-fields in bioinformatics and computational biology. Furthermore, the conference encouraged interaction among scientists from diverse research groups with distinct backgrounds, including computer scientists, mathematicians, and biologists.