Australian user community growth and infrastructure developments highlighted at global Galaxy conference

The Galaxy Australia team has just returned from the Global Galaxy Conference (GCC) - held virtually again this year - where they joined scientists, administrators and developers from more than 55 countries to share knowledge, skills and expertise in the two-week collaboration fest, training event and conference.

Simon Gladman and Gareth Price represented Galaxy Australia on the GCC Organising Committee and the team was well represented amongst the delegates. The team took the opportunity to highlight the rapid growth of the Galaxy Australia service with talks and posters featuring stories of how Galaxy Australia is responding to community needs and supporting skills development via the integration of new tools and workflows, especially those associated with large genomic data sets. They also took the community behind the scenes to see how recent infrastructure changes, including the move to AARNet and integration with CloudStor, are supporting the growth in demand for Galaxy Australia services, improving data transfer and allowing planning for the long term sustainability and reliability of the service. 

Training was also a highlight of the event with the Galaxy Australia team supporting those in Australian time zones to join the global training event and leading training in the admin track. Of course, the Galaxy Australia team itself continues to grow and the conference was a fantastic opportunity for newer team members Cameron Hyde (USC/QCIF), Grace Hall (Melbourne Bioinformatics), Madeline Basetti (QCIF) to undertake training to increase capacity and capabilities for Galaxy Australia.

Take a look at this blog post for highlights, recordings and training materials from the GCC.