Collaborative knowledge sharing for data scientists

Participants take a break during the workshop. Photo: S Montañez, Excellence in Breeding, CGIAR

CGIAR-wide skill development program on bioinformatics and biometrics

Bioinformatics, biometrics and data science practitioners from several CGIAR centers converged on a multi-institutional workshop to update themselves on the latest trends. These skill upgrades would help scientists to communicate their research data clearly and effectively to their target audience.

The goal of the workshop ‘Annual Collaborative Workshop for Bioinformatics & Biometrics Community of Practice (CoP) under Excellence in Breeding (EiB) Platform-Module 5’ was to bring colleagues from across the CGIAR research centers closer to recent developments in technology through skill development.

Genomic selection (GS) and genomic prediction (GP), and web application development using R Shiny were the two integral components of the workshop. Professor Jean-Luc Jannink and Dr Marnin Wolfe from Cornell University were resource persons for GS and Mr Omar E Benites and Mr Ivan Perez from the International Potato Centre for R Shiny.

Over a period of six days – divided into two sessions of three days each – the participants picked up the latest technology updates in the above topics, discussed use cases of GS/GP with real-time test data, learned various strategies and statistical models for the GS including review of field trial data and its analysis, and gained hands-on experience in developing and hosting dashboards using Shiny, among other activities.

The workshop, held during 23-29 September 2018 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, was organized by Dr Abhishek Rathore, EiB Module 5- Bioinformatics & Biometrics CoP Coordinator & Theme Leader, Statistics, Bioinformatics and Data Management, ICRISAT. The workshop was funded by EiB Module 5 and has support from EiB-Module 5 Leader, Dr Kelly R Robbins. Twelve representatives from the Africa Rice Center, International Potato Center, International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, International Livestock Research Institute and International Rice Research Institute participated in this workshop.