The Third International Conference on Bio-Inspired Computing: Theories and Applications (BIC-TA 2008) aims to provide a high-level international forum for researchers working in the main areas of natural computing inspired by biology to present their recent results and to exchange ideas. The conference invites researchers to contribute high-quality original research papers in any aspect of bio-inspired computing. The main topics for the conference include, but are not limited to, the following: Evolutionary computing Neural computing DNA computing Membrane computing The conference will feature plenary lectures given by invited speakers. All accepted papers will be published in IEEE Xplore. Revised and additionally refereed versions of selected papers presented at BIC-TA 2008 will be published after the conference in the Journal of Computational and Theoretical Nanoscience. The conference will be held by the University of South Australia in Adelaide, Australia.