ELIXIR Belgium: Your data, Our services, European success

23-24 October 2023
Muziekcentrum De Bijloke, Gent

At this year's ELIXIR national meeting, we will showcase the variety of services in our portfolio with scientists illustrating how the services facilitate their research. The connection with existing European initiatives, both in ELIXIR and other research infrastructures, will also be demonstrated. In this way, we will give a comprehensive overview of our activities and their integration in the broader European context.

For the first time, our national event will run for two days - starting on Monday 23 October in the afternoon. Also new are poster sessions covering more services and enabling engaging discussions and networking. This event is free, but registration is required.

 

Programme

Monday 23 October

12.45   Registration and poster set-up

13.30   Welcome and introduction, Frederik Coppens, Head of Node ELIXIR Belgium (VIB)

13.45   Session 1 : Genome exploration platforms advancing diagnostics - Chair: Tom Lenaerts (VUB/ULB)

  • AI in service of rare diseases: 10 years of oligogenic service development, Sofia Papadimitriou (VUB/ULB) - Slides
  • Genome4Brussels: paving the way for the active participation of patients and citizens in multicentre genomics and bioinformatics research through a bottom-up approach, Romain Alderweireldt (101 Genomes Foundation) - Slides
  • From Code to Consortium: building WiNGS for federated genomic analysis, Geert Vandeweyer (UAntwerp) - Slides
  • Cracking the Code: navigating challenges in building research software for federated implementations - WiNGS, Nishkala Sattanathan (UAntwerp) - Slides

15.15   Coffee break and Poster session I
 

16.15   Session 2 : Human immunogenetics and plant genomics hubs - Chair: Rafael Andrade Buono (VIB)

  • TCRex: annotation of the human T-cell receptor repertoire, Pieter Meysman (UAntwerp) - Slides
  • Chasing T cells ex vivo, in vitro and in silico: TCR functionality, signature and engineering, Donovan Flumens (UZA) - Slides
  • User-driven PLAZA-like instances on demand, Michiel Van Bel (VIB/UGent) - Slides
  • How the PLAZA platform empowers comparative genomics research of diatoms, Gust Bilcke (VIB/UGent) - Slides

17.30   Network reception

19.00   End of the first day 
 

 

Tuesday 24 October

9.00   Registration
 

9.30   Welcome and introduction, Kim De Ruyck, Node Coordinator ELIXIR Belgium (VIB)
 

9.40   Session 3 : Support and training for FAIR and Open science - Chair: Alexander Botzki (VIB)

  • Data management policies: a funders’ perspective, Jan Mertens (FWO) - Slides
  • ELIXIR Belgium in the European research data management arena, Flora D'Anna (VIB) - Slides
  • Professionalising data stewardship in the Netherlands: community building, job profiles and funder engagement, Mijke Jetten (HealthRI) - Slides
  • Dodona: learn to code with a virtual co-teacher that supports active learning, Peter Dawyndt (UGent) - Slides

11.00   Coffee break
 

11.30   Session 4 : Linking proteome and genome data to unravel diseases - Chair: Juan Antonio Vizcaino (EMBL-EBI)

  • Predicting protein features with bio2byte tools: a scientific software deployment case study, Wim Vranken (VUB) - Slides
  • From generic conformational ensembles to one-health epidemics: expanding evolutionary sequence-to-function knowledge and modelling predictors of viral-host protein interactions, Rachid Tahzima (ULiège/ILVO)
  • Bridging the gap between communities: Scop3P system to provide context to protein PTMs, Pathmanaban Ramasamy (VIB/UGent) - Slides
  • Decoding 13 years of Unipept: from initial commit to mature node service, Bart Mesuere (UGent) - Slides

13.10   Lunch and Poster session II
 

14.30   Session 5 : Enabling access and analysis of distributed data - Chair : Yves Moreau (KU Leuven)

  • How research data infrastructures support large scale initiatives as the Genomic Data Infrastructure, Salvador Capella-Gutierrez (Spanish National Bioinformatics Institute) - Slides
  • Integration of genomic and population health data sets for risk stratification: opportunities and challenges, Nina Van Goethem (Sciensano)
  • Personal genomes in healthcare practice, Gökhan Ertaylan (VITO) - Slides
  • Personal Health Train: is it a steam or high-speed train?, Johan van Soest (Maastricht University) - Slides
  • Panel discussion : Federated analysis, uh?

16.45   Wrap-up, Frederik Coppens, Head of Node ELIXIR Belgium (VIB)

17.00   End of the event

 

X hashtag: #ELIXIRbe23

 

Organising committee: Tom Lenaerts (VUB/ULB), Geert Vandeweyer (UAntwerp), Emilie Cauët (Sciensano), Lennart Martens (UGent), Rafael Buono (VIB Data Core), Dilza Campos (VIB Data Core), Frederik Coppens (VIB Data Core), Kim De Ruyck (VIB Data Core)