The Outpost team consisted of Cameron Hyde (QCIF, University of the Sunshine Coast), Igor Makunin (QCIF, University of Queensland / Australian BioCommons), Anna Syme (Melbourne Bioinformatics / Australian BioCommons), Michael Charleston (University of Tasmania), Locedie Mansueto (Southern Cross University), Johan Gustafsson (Australian BioCommons), Mike Thang (QCIF, University of Queensland / Australian BioCommons), Tom Harrop (Melbourne Bioinformatics / Australian BioCommons), and Siyuan Wang (Symbio Laboratories).

To bridge the geographical gap, an Australian team participated in an innovative collaboration to once again join BioHackathon Europe remotely. Providing a powerful opportunity for Australian contributors to shape global bioinformatics advancements, this fun annual ELIXIR Europe - Australian Outpost also offers a welcoming platform for networking with local and international peers.

From 30 Oct to 3 Nov, a diverse team from around Australia converged on a Brisbane hotel, turning the apartment into a hub of innovative coding challenges. Ten people worked 2:30 pm - 12:30 am each day, while connecting live with the rest of the teams in Barcelona and online. The highly anticipated annual event saw 350 participants from around the world come together to work on 35 projects.

Reflecting the rich multicultural fabric of Australia and the global nature of the event, the team showcased a remarkable diversity of backgrounds. Composed of individuals born in England, China, the Soviet Union, the Philippines, Malaysia, New Zealand, and Australia, and ranging from postgraduate students to seasoned professors, our team brought together a tapestry of experiences, perspectives, and expertise. We welcomed familiar faces and newcomers who responded to our public call for interest, and participants from both academia and industry. They brought interests in mathematics, biology, computing and bioinformatics and exchanged more than a few skills along the way.

Our group mirrored the inclusive spirit of the BioHackathon, working hard into the night to contribute to one or two of our chosen projects:

Galaxy ENA Upload as an Interactive Tool
A big leap forward was made to the process to interactively build the metadata required for successful ENA data submission. This team worked on a new interactive Galaxy tool that allows a researcher to pick and populate one of 30+ ENA templates, and re-focused the ENA upload tool in Galaxy to accept only prepared ENA templates.
Genome annotation and other post-assembly workflows for the tree of life
This team contributed to a broad examination of analysis pipelines by running annotations for several species using multiple Galaxy tools. The results have kicked off ongoing work to consolidate tools and relevant settings into user-friendly workflows.
Increasing the findability, visibility, and impact of Galaxy tools for specialised scientific Communities
The project created an interactive table prototype that increases the findability of the Galaxy microbiome analysis tools, and which can now be reused by other Galaxy domain communities. The process of updating bio.tools registry entries and linking each Galaxy tool to these entries was started, and will ensure the completeness of the table metadata over time.

Aside from the progress made on each of the projects, the Outpost provided the opportunity to “meet new people and continue building working relationships with international colleagues” which has already resulted in “multiple collaborative outcomes from the projects” according to Dr Johan Gustafsson, BioCommons’ Bioinformatics Engagement Officer. Siyuan Wang, from Symbio Laboratories, said: “The Outpost was a perfect opportunity to meet new people in a similar field and I got to work on exciting projects that I wouldn’t normally have had a chance to do.” From the European side, Dr Nicola Soranzo, who currently works at the Earlham Institute as Galaxy Platform Development Officer found the virtual connection worked very well, and was thankful for a “great collaboration with the Aussie Outpost!”

ELIXIR generously supported the in-person attendance of Dr Gareth Price from QCIF. As Galaxy Australia’s Lead, Gareth was well placed to act as our Barecelona connection point. He helped to raise awareness of our Outpost and facilitate discussions and presentations on behalf of the Aussies. We are extremely grateful to ELIXIR for working with us in the lead up to the event to make sure our contributions were optimised.

We’ll bring together a new team for the next BioHackathon Europe in Nov 2024 - maybe you will join us next time!

Australian satellite of BioHackathon Europe 2023 underscores the universal language of scientific collaboration