This week's highlights
ELIXIR and US National Cancer Institute build partnership with staff exchange
ELIXIR and the US National Institutes of Healths National Cancer Institute (NCI) have built on their partnership with a staff exchange to facilitate knowledge sharing. The five-month exchange, funded by ELIXIR, brought together five ELIXIR Nodes, the ELIXIR Hub and NCIs Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics.
Read the news
Final communications group meeting of the year
9 December 2024 | 14:00 - 15:00 CET | Online
The final communications group meeting of the year will be on Monday 9 December, 14-15 CET. This meeting will focus on the branding across ELIXIR, everyone interested in the topic are welcome to join.
The meeting agenda and Zoom link
On Thursday 5 December, the ELIXIR website will be offline from 19:00 CET for scheduled maintenance, which is anticipated to take no more than 30 minutes.
Recommended reads
Scalable, accessible and reproducible reference genome assembly and evaluation in Galaxy
A correspondence article on Galaxy
The Earth BioGenome Project aims to produce reference genomes for all ~1.8 million known eukaryotic species over the next decade. Achieving this goal will require the current pace of reference genome production to increase by at least two orders of magnitude1. Automation of the assembly process with a pipeline that is widely accessible to any research group will be required to achieve this speed-up. Enabling this goal requires sustained effort in three major areas: genome assembly optimisation and best-practice development, computational infrastructure provisioning, and dissemination and training.
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Dynamic configuration and data security for bioinformatics cloud services with the Laniakea Dashboard
An ELIXIR Italy paper
This paper presents three components of the Laniakea software stack. These components can be adopted by providers of scientific cloud services built on the INDIGO PaaS layer. The Dashboard translates configuration template files into user-friendly web interfaces, enabling the easy configuration and launch of on-demand applications. The secret management and the encryption components, integrated within the Dashboard, support the secure handling of passphrases and credentials and the deployment of block-level encrypted storage volumes for managing sensitive data in the cloud environment.
Read more
Updates from Nodes
Follow ELIXIR Estonia on social media
ELIXIR Estonia has created a BlueSky account. Please follow ELIXIR Estonia on BlueSky or X (Twitter) for the latest update and overview of ELIXIR Estonias activities.
ELIXIR Estonia Bluesky / ELIXIR Esotnia X
ELIXIR-UK All Hands 2024: A celebration of collaboration and innovation
The ELIXIR-UK All Hands Meeting 2024, held at Cardiff Principality Stadium on November 1920, brought together 70 attendees from across members of ELIXIR-UK, and representatives from the Welsh Government, BBSRC and MRC. Participants joined in to reflect on achievements and discuss the future and direction of the Node's efforts.
Read the news
Updates from Communities
ELIXIR Single Cell Omics Community: Call for new co-lead
Deadline: 05 December 2024
The ELIXIR SCO Community is looking for one new co-lead to join the Community leadership team (Eija Korpelainen and Raffaele Calogero). Candidates should submit a short statement of their background and what they believe they will bring to the role. A big thank you to Naveed Ishaque for his work as a co-lead and we look forward to his ongoing contribution to the Community.
For any questions or nominations, please contact Katharina Heil.
More information (including timeline and self-nomination details)
ELIXIR Microbiome Community F2F/hybrid meeting
09-10 April 2025 | Hybrid - Barcelona, Spain
This meeting brings together members of the ELIXIR Microbiome Community to build connections, review community progress, and collaborate on strategic planning and proposals for the 2024-2028 ELIXIR Scientific Programme.
More information and registration
ELIXIR Biodiversity Community F2F/hybrid meeting
10-11 April 2025 | Hybrid - Barcelona, Spain
This meeting is planned as a hybrid meeting, with the F2F component in Barcelona and the initial session will also be a joint session with the Microbiome Community. During the meeting, the Biodiversity Community will discuss ongoing activities and possible engagement in the 2024-2028 ELIXIR Scientific Programme.
More information and registration
Updates from other initiatives
Important steps made towards establishing a European genomic data infrastructure
On 20 and 21 November, the European Genomic Data Infrastructure (GDI) project held its General Assembly in Lisbon, Portugal. During this meeting, the major achievements reached were presented, including a demonstration of systems allowing cross-border search functions, access to data and federated analysis. The event was also an opportunity to plan for the final two years of the project.
GBC impact study on economic activity and industrial applications
This series of case studies explores how biodata resources have practically contributed to enhancing economic activity and supported development across diverse industries.
Read more
WHO guidance for human genome data collection, access, use and sharing
The World Health Organization has issued a set of principles for the ethical collection, access, use and sharing of human genomic data. These principles establish a global approach to help protect individual rights, promote equity and foster responsible collaboration in genomic research.
Read the guidance
Upcoming ELIXIR events & webinars
ELIXIR Training Courses & Webinars
The ELIXIR TeSS portal has a variety of interesting events and courses organised by the ELIXIR Nodes. For more, visit TeSS portal
de.NBI training course: Differential analysis of quantitative proteomics data using R
12 - 13 December 2024 | Online
de.NBI training course: Computational design and directed evolution of therapeutic peptides
16-20 December 2024 | Leipzig, Germany
de.NBI training course: Mastering research data management for human data: safeguarding sensitive information and elevating data security
23-24 January 2025 | online
SIB course: Introduction to statistics with R
27-29 January 2025 | Lausanne, Switzerland
EMBL-EBI course: Applications for gene-environment interactions in human health and disease
17 - 21 March 2025 | EMBL-EBI, UK
EMBL-EBI course: Microscopy data analysis: machine learning and the BioImage Archive
31 March - 4 April 2025 | Online
EMBL-EBI course: Cancer genomics and transcriptomics
12 - 16 May 2025 | Online
EMBL-EBI course: Introduction to metabolomics analysis
20 - 23 May 2025 | EMBL-EBI, UK
ELIXIR Events and Conferences
ICRI side event: Euro-Australian research infrastructure collaboration in the molecular life sciences
6 December 2024 | Hybrid - Brisbane, Australia
ELIXIR 3D BioInfo Community F2F/hybrid meeting
19-21 March 2025 | Hybrid - Barcelona, Spain
ELIXIR Microbiome Community F2F/hybrid meeting
09-10 April 2025 | Hybrid - Barcelona, Spain
ELIXIR Biodiversity Community F2F/hybrid meeting
10-11 April 2025 | Hybrid - Barcelona, Spain
ELIXIR All Hands 2025
2-5 June 2025 | Thessaloniki, Greece
Job vacancies
All vacancies are also published on the ELIXIR website (also including those from industry). If you need our help communicating your new open positions, you can submit a job advertisement and it will automatically appear on our newsletters. Go to our vacancy page to submit a job