Animal Bioinformatics Workshop

Background
Workshop 2006 on future of livestock genomics
Explosion in data resulting from the rapid advances in
genomics technology, increasing volume and
complexity
Purpose
Identify needs for the tools of storage, manipulation,
integration and interpretation, as well as
accompanying measures (e.g. training)
Analysis is the current bottlenecks
Search for avenues for further
international collaboration
Opportunity
Establish a strong bioinformatics research
community building resources to support
agricultural/veterinary research
Extend our knowledge of farmed animals to
illuminate the human (and model species)
genome
Integrate with other communities (model animal
organisms, plant, microbial)
Discuss twin/complementary/joint funding
mechanisms for these activities
Farm Animal Bioinformatics
Workshop was led by scientific co-chairs :
Curt Van Tassell (USDA/ARS Beltsville), and
James Reecy (Iowa State University)
and
Martien Groenen (Wageningen University) and
Alan Archibald (Roslin Institute)
30 participants, 15 EU, 12 US, 1 NZ and 2 EU
Industry representatives
Outcomes-Ideas-Needs
Training/Education
Need for training ran through all discussions
Current limitations
We have data, not the people to work it
Sustainability
Scientists/leaders of tomorrow
Opportunity for International Collaboration
Attract people with international training
opportunities
Recognized need for computational
biologists/bioinformaticists
Need 30-40% of funds going to data handling
1 in 3 or 1 in 4 hires in computational biology
for genomics projects
Two Hats of Bioinformatics
Management for the masses
Refining/Using tools that already exist
Analysis/collaborative teams for the cutting edge
New ways to think
Visualize information
Key Challenges
System interoperability
Heterogeneity of data
Data capture
Plumbing analogy/electric grid
Pipes: Internet, Intranet
Reservoirs: Instruments, Public databases
Water towers: Internal databases
Filters and pumps: Software to transform data
Long term support for the databases
Join forces of life sciences, human health,
agriculture
Can/will NCBI and EBI support non-model,
non-human species information?
Reference populations
Reference sequences
Reference phenotypes
Our discussions focused on how to use
bioinformatics as driver of research instead of
supporting genomics research
Reflected make up of the workshop
Biologists and bioinformatists
Working group to set priorities
Training opportunities
Workshops
Eg. Phenotyping, Manual annotation, Standardized data