Over the last decade, our ability to acquire data about microbes, microbial communities and their environments has grown way faster than our ability to analyse and make sense of that data.

 

Dr Jim Tiedje - University Distinguished Professor of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, and of Crop and Soil Sciences, and is Director of the Center for Microbial Ecology at Michigan State University - is a world leader in ecogenomics and very familiar with the challenge of converting data into knowledge. We are using the opportunity afforded by Jim’s McMaster Visiting Fellowship in 2014 to convene a symposium on this topic. We are delighted that researchers and trainers from the European Bioinformatics Institute will be in Australia and participating in the meeting. Finally, we are grateful that the second (open) day of this event will be run with support from the Australian Bioinformatics Network.

 

Our hope is that this meeting will develop and strengthen connections between people, resources and opportunities relevant to the informatics aspects of ecogenomics bring together researchers from across the spectrum of disciplines needed to gain insight from ecogenomics data increase the level of understanding across disciplinary boundaries about the scientific context, research question and objectives of different kinds of ecogenomic studies the informatics and analysis strategies within these studies where current challenges and opportunities lie in turning ecogenomics data into knowledge.

 

Please note: Day 1 is CSIRO-only. Day 2 is open to all. For more information, including registration, please visit the Australian Bioinformatics Network's website.