In anticipation of the upcoming 5th edition of Applied Bioinformatics in Life Sciences conference, we had the pleasure of sitting down with two experts. The first is Alex Botzki, head of the Technology Training unit at VIB and driving force behind the conference. The second is Amelie Stein, an invited speaker who leads a lab at the University of Copenhagen. Both share insights into their work, hot topics in the field, collaboration, and their vision for the future of bioinformatics.