Successful OSD Analysis Jamboree held at EMBL-EBI

Twenty-eight researchers from across Europe and worldwide were brought together to take part in the “Micro B3 OSD Analysis Workshop” on 9-13 March 2015 at EMBL-EBI, as part of the Micro B3 project. The event, which was partially a training course, and partially a data analysis ‘jamboree’, was organised collaboratively by partners from EMBL-EBI and Jacobs University Bremen. It provided the opportunity for researchers to work collaboratively on analysing their Ocean Sampling Day (OSD) data and sharing their knowledge.

The taught part of the course was delivered by ten leading researchers in the field of marine metagenomics from EMBL-EBI, Jacobs University Bremen, and many other collaborating institutes from across Europe, that are partners in the Micro B3 project. The course was practical-focused with hands-on tutorials on how to submit and access OSD data, perform QC and conform to common metagenomics standards, among others.

Chris Bowler (CNRS, Paris) delivered an excellent keynote lecture, revealing the secrets of Diatom genomes and metabolism, in a talk that was attended by many others from EMBL-EBI and the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute. Additionally, during the afternoon practical sessions i.e. the ‘jamboree’, participants worked together in small groups supervised by ~16 members of the core Micro B3 OSD analysis team to work on specific analyses that were relevant to them. Much OSD data was therefore analysed during the time of the course, and the collaborative atmosphere enabled participants to learn from one-another which approaches would be most effective for their specific OSD data.

The course was very well received by participants with 90% of participants having rated the course as ‘excellent’ or ‘good’. Favourite sessions included Chris Bowler’s keynote lecture, and Pier Luigi Buttigieg‘s tutorial on ‘Numerical ecology approaches to analysing high-dimensional data & sharing analytical knowledge’. The balance of theoretical and participant content was deemed to be ‘about right’ by 90% of participants, and 90% of participants claimed that they would use the tools and resources covered in the course in their future work.

Participant Comments

“The ability to meet and interact directly with the OSD and EBI coordinators; and discussions of problems. Also the networking that was able to take place between the various participants was wonderful!”

“Excellent organization. Collaboration atmosphere achieved.”