Managing a Bioinformatics Core Facility Workshop

By DR DEANNA DEVESON LUCAS, MANAGER (BIOINFORMATICS), MONASH GENOMICS AND BIOINFORMATICS PLATFORM

And DR GEORGINA SAMAHA, BIOINFORMATICS GROUP LEAD AT THE SYDNEY INFORMATICS HUB, UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY

Late last year, we were lucky enough to be selected to attend the 2023 EMBL-EBI Managing a Bioinformatics Core Facility Workshop held at the Wellcome Sanger Genome Campus in Cambridgeshire, UK. We joined 13 other participants from around the globe (Aus, UK, Europe, Middle East, North and South America!) for a whirlwind 3-day immersive course on all things bioinformatics facility management.

Dee is the Bioinformatics Manager at the Monash Genomics and Bioinformatics Platform, Monash University, and Georgie is the Bioinformatics Group Lead at the Sydney Informatics Hub, University of Sydney. We each manage teams of bioinformaticians and developers supporting life science researchers in all things -omics and bioinformatic training. As members of the Australian BioCommons National Training Cooperative, we had previously only ever met over Zoom, but the EMBL-EBI workshop allowed us to finally meet in person. We were also joined by fellow Australian, Jason Li, who is the Bioinformatics Core Facility Manager at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Center. 

Bioinformatics core facilities play an essential role in advancing scientific discoveries as hubs of expertise across different institutions. These facilities are integral components in hospitals, research organisations, and universities and we support researchers in extracting meaningful insights from biological data. As the research landscape changes and more and more of us are applying bioinformatics to our experiments, bioinformatics core facilities have to stay ahead of the curve and adapt to emerging technologies, methods, and research priorities. 

Throughout the workshop, we explored a variety of topics that are integral to the success and sustainability of our organisations and the services we provide. These included: 

1. Understanding the dynamic landscape and how we adapt to the changing needs of the life science community 

2. The intricacies of service design and how we can better understand our user needs 

3. Exploring strategies to secure funding and managing finances to ensure our services are sustainable 

4. Nurturing a positive working environment and supporting happy bioinformaticians 

5. Assessing and maximising the impact of our facilities on research outcomes 

6. Sharing various project management techniques 

 We started with a history of bioinformatics, the changing nature of data and analyses, and how these changes require an ever evolving and adaptable facility.

We learnt how to approach issues from different angles, evaluate the user experience and discussed how we could support our teams to ensure they are happy and fulfilled bioinformaticians. 

We had extensive collaborative and networking opportunities throughout the course. Interacting with fellow participants hailing from different organisations across the globe provided a unique perspective. Despite our differences and the geographical distances that separate us, we discovered the threads that bind us together were remarkably consistent and we learned a lot from one another. This realisation underscored the universal nature and current realities of bioinformatics. When we weren’t talking all things bioinformatics we had a fantastic team dinner at the nearby village of Whittlesford at the Tickell Arms.

This was a fantastic opportunity to not only upskill but to expand our Bioinformatician Managers network!

If you are interested in finding out more, check out the workshop materials. EMBL-EBI are running the course again in November 2024, we urge other core research facility managers to apply to attend. It’s a fantastic opportunity to not only invest in your professional growth but also to expand your bioinformatics network!