ELIXIR Sweden were perfect hosts for the tenth annual gathering of the ELIXIR community, held in the splendid surroundings of the historic Uppsala University Main Building.
All Hands 2024 brought together 371 in-person attendees and 160 remote participants to share in the successes and address the challenges of building and sustaining a distributed life science data infrastructure.
The three-day meeting was an opportunity to explore topics within ELIXIR’s new Scientific Programme 2024-28 and was the first with Tim Hubbard as Director. Participants were offered a selection of parallel sessions, made up of 9 mini-symposia and 25 workshops, and came together for 4 plenaries and to view 79 posters.
Highlights included the opening and closing keynotes by Mathias Uhlen from Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, and Tim Hubbard, respectively. Mathias, originally from Uppsala, spoke about his work on the Human Protein Atlas and the implications for human biology, drug development and precision medicine. Tim described his background and achievements before joining ELIXIR and gave some initial thoughts on his vision for the infrastructure as new director.
Two early morning plenaries examined the Science and Technology tiers of 2024-28 Scientific Programme, setting the scene for the nine mini-symposia, which were organised around the Programme structure. Five mini symposia covered the Programme's Technology tier (Data, Compute, Training, Interoperability and Tools), three addressed the Science tier (Human Data and Translational Research; Cellular and Molecular Biology; Biodiversity, Food Security and Pathogens) and the final symposia provided a forum to discuss both the Node and People tiers.
Lunchtimes were an opportunity to continue discussions, with some individuals meeting face-to-face for the first time. Those needing fresh air could take a ten-minute walk to Linnaeus Gardens, where Carl Linnaeus, a professor of the University in the 1740s, created the scientific classification system of nature still in use today.
ELIXIR Sweden's hospitality included a wonderful dinner in Uppsala castle, complete with performances from a traditional male voice choir and a toe-tapping swing band. Bengt Persson, ELIXIR Sweden’s Head of Node, received sincere thanks for his efforts in making the meeting so memorable.
As is All Hands tradition, next year’s venue was unveiled in the closing plenary, and we look forward to sampling the sights, sounds and tastes of ELIXIR Greece in 2025.
Find out more
- Posters and slides on F1000 - with more to be uploaded. A report collating all resources will be added here in September 2024.
- Photos
- Event hashtag #ELIXIR24