The SQANTI-verse and Bioinformatics for everybody!
May could also be called “Ana on Tour”, as she has spent the whole month on the road, from conference to conference expanding our lab’s influence ;). She began the month in Athens, attending PacBio’s PRISM conference and falling in love with its new device: Vega ❤️. After Athens, she visited Paris as an invited speaker on omics developments in the Human Genomics Symposium!
During the first week of the month, Ana and Pablo were invited to the Institute of Evolutionary Biology in Barcelona to teach about SQANTI3 and long-read transcriptomics curation as part of a course focused on genome annotation. The organization was fantastic, and the course attracted great participants, including Aureliano Bombarely, Ana Rojas, Rosa Fernández, Katarina Hoff, and Yannis Nevers. It was an inspiring event where ideas and knowledge flowed freely—everyone had something to learn, even the most seasoned among us. 😉
That same week, Carol gave a talk on the activities of the Junior Hub of the Computational Biology and Bioinformatics Conexions during the first Microbiome Conexion Assembly—a new CSIC initiative to bring scientists together. She described the experience as “guay” (cool 😎), as it allowed her to connect with many researchers working on microbiomes—her own PhD topic—and helped spark the interest of new young bioinformaticians in our BCB Conexión.
To cap off the week, ExpoCiencia took place—a science outreach event organized by the University of Valencia and the Parc Científic, where our lab is based. For the occasion, Carlos, Tian and Ana set up a tent where kids (and not-so-kids!) could explore the wonders of bioinformatics. We offered two main activities: one where visitors could discover which protein their name encoded, and the clear crowd favorite—make-your-own DNA bracelets! Participants translated their names into nucleotide sequences and turned them into colorful jewelry for their wrists. It was a hit, and who knows? This might just be the next summer fashion trend. 😄
And that’s not all—PacBio didn’t just invite Ana to Athens. She also traveled to their home base in Boston, where the entire SQANTI-verse roadmap was presented in full. For this special event, we had a surprise in store: the launch of the SQANTI-cards! These collectible, tradeable cards feature our tools—eight have been released so far—and each card highlights the unique features and capabilities of a different tool. Keep an eye out for them, and don’t forget… Gotta chatch ’em all! 🃏✨
Click for a surprise!
For example, we recently launched SQANTI-reads, a tool that integrates multiple samples into a single, comprehensive report and can directly analyze long-read transcriptomics data. We’re also on the verge of publishing SQANTI-tusco, which will provide users with more customizable options to assess genome completeness.
On May 22nd, Quique had the opportunity to participate in the X Doctoral Students Meeting of the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV). There, he presented a beautiful poster about his research within the Cells2spine project—the backbone of his PhD. He was thrilled to share the progress of his work and engage in rich exchanges with fellow PhD students. A big thank you to the Doctoral School of the UPV for creating such an inspiring space for learning and connection! 🎓🧬
To wrap up the month, Tian gave us an exciting sneak peek at the results of his nearly ready-to-launch tool, SQANTI-tusco! This upcoming module of the SQANTI-verse is designed to evaluate transcriptome completeness, much like BUSCO does for whole genomes. However, TUSCO uses a carefully curated gene set tailored to transcriptomes, consisting only of single-isoform genes. Stay tuned—the release is coming soon! 🚀