WORKSHOPS & TUTORIALS

NGS Post-Conference Workshops
Registration is required. Limited capacity.

Registration fees:
• ISCB Member/CRG - € 20
• Nonmember - € 50

Accessing structural variation and population genomics data in Ensembl

Organizers:
Dr. Benjamin Moore, Ensembl Outreach Officer, EMBL-EBI
Laurent Gil, Ensembl Variation Developer, EMBL-EBI


Description:
The Ensembl genome browser (www.ensembl.org) provides visualisation and analysis of integrated genomic data, including genes, variants, comparative genomics and gene regulation, for over 70 species [1].

In this workshop, participants will learn about the structural variation and population genomics data in Ensembl and how to access these data using the Ensembl genome browser. A series of short demonstrations and exercises will allow participants to retrieve this data from Ensembl and think about how this data might be informative for their own research.

Participants will also learn how to upload their own data to view in the Ensembl genome browser alongside the publically available data, and how to analyse the consequences of sets of variants using the Variant Effect Predictor (VEP).

[1] Aken BL et al. Ensembl 2017. Nucleic Acids Res 45(D1):D635–D642.

Learning objectives:
• Gain confidence to explore structural variation and population genomics data in Ensembl, and to export these data.
• Explore transcript haplotype and linkage disequilibrium data in Ensembl.
• Use the Variant Effect Predictor (VEP) to analyse the consequences of variants.
• Learn how to upload custom sequencing and variation data to the Ensembl browser.

Audience Level:
This is an introductory workshop and is aimed at new and intermediate Ensembl users from the wet-lab, bioinformatics and medical communities.

Dr. Benjamin Moore (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
Laurent Gil (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)

Large-scale reproducible NGS analyses with Nextflow

Organizers:
•  Paolo di Tommaso, Research Software Engineer, Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG), The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology
•  Emilio Palumbo, BioinformaticsTechnician, Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG), The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology
•  Anna Vlasova, Bioinformatics Technician, Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG), The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology

Description:
Exponential growth of biological datasets in the last decade together with increasing complexity and variability of the methods became an important issue for standard and reproducible data analysis. The increasing heterogeneity of computational environments such as local workstations, big computational clusters or cloud services raised the need for easily portable computational workflows. This workshop will introduce Nextflow - a pipeline management tool to tackle these problems and its application to NGS technologies. In the frame of the workshop we will show how to make NGS pipelines flexible, reproducible and portable across different execution environments.

Objectives:
Reproducibility along with computational capabilities have become two of biology’s most pressing issues, because of the exponential growth of biological datasets and the reliance on increasingly complex methods and data analysis workflows.

This workshop will introduce the state-of-the-art technologies and best practices proposed to tackle the problem of irreproducible NGS data analyses and how to make large omics workflows portable across HPC clusters and cloud environments. The most common NGS use cases and applications will be discussed.

Audience Level:
The session is aimed at people interested in computational processing and analysis of big datasets in efficient and reproducible manner. In particular this session can be of interest for computational biologists and bioinformaticians. Participants ideally must have working experience with the command line and linux. Basic knowledge of computational workflows could be a plus.

Finding and Accessing Human Genome Data
Organizers: Manuel Corpas, Scientific Lead, Repositive

Description:
Repositive is a Cambridge-based (UK) startup building a platform for facilitating access to and reuse of genomic data. The platform includes features for discovery of available data, making your data visible to the research community, managing your data sources and initiating data collaborations. The platform also integrates methods for secure data sharing and a patented mechanism for secure privacy-preserving data access.

Repositive is a spin-out of the charity DNAdigest which was started by Fiona Nielsen in 2013 to educate, facilitate, and engage on issues regarding access to genomic data for research. DNAdigest is a non-profit organisation founded in Cambridge, UK. It is a community of individuals from diverse backgrounds who all want to see data used to its full potential for the benefit of patients. DNAdigest organises events, issues a newsletter, conducts interviews and runs a blog.

Both organisations are part of Global Alliance for Genomics and Health.

Objectives:
1) Discuss current challenges in data sharing, focusing especially on researchers studying human genomic datasets.
2) Present a number of tools and resources for finding, accessing and sharing genomic data:
- Repositive
- EGA (European Genome Phenome Archive)
- dbGaP
- GigaScience
- Nature Scientific Data
- figshare
3) Discuss the best practices for using data to power hypothesis testing and maximising research impact.

Audience Level:
• Genomic data providers
• Users of massive genomic datasets
• Bioinformaticians
• Data scientists
• Publishers
• Data curators

Manuel Corpas
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

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CODE OF CONDUCT

The International Society for Computational Biology, Inc. (ISCB) assumes that most people are intelligent and well-intended, and we're not inclined to tell people what to do. However, we want every ISCB conference to be a safe and productive environment for everyone. Attendees should respect common sense rules for public behavior, personal interaction, common courtesy, and respect for private property.

ISCB doesn’t condone harassment or offensive behavior, at our conference venues or anywhere. It's counter to our organization values. More importantly, it's counter to our values as human beings.

Abusive, racist, sexist, harassing, or threatening behavior towards any other participant or directed at any organizer, student volunteer, ISCB staff, convention center staff, or security will not be tolerated.

We invite you to help us make each ISCB conference a place that is welcoming and respectful to all participants, regardless of race, gender, age, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, national origin, ethnicity, or religion. This allows everyone the opportunity to focus on the conference itself, and the great networking and community richness that happens when we get together in person. Please report any incidents in which an attendee of the meeting is abusive, insulting, intimidating, bothersome, or acting in an unsafe or illegal manner to ISCB staff or security immediately.

We expect all participants to follow the Code of Conduct during the conference. This includes conference-related social events at off-site locations, and in related online communities and social media. Participants asked to stop any harassing behavior are expected to comply immediately. Conference participants violating this Code of Conduct may be expelled from the conference without a refund.

Please bring any concerns to the immediate attention of the event staff, or contact our Executive Director, Diane Kovats, at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. We thank our participants for your help in keeping the event welcoming, respectful, and friendly to all participants.

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COMMITTEES

Conference Chairs 

Janet Kelso, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (co-chair), Germany
Cédric Notredame, Centre for Genomic Regulation (co-chair), Spain
Stephan Ossowski, Centre for Genomic Regulation (co-chair), Spain

Steering Committee

Janet Kelso, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Antropology (co-chair), Germany
Cédric Notredame, Centre for Genomic Regulation (co-chair), Spain
Stephan Ossowski, Centre for Genomic Regulation (co-chair), Spain
Laura Prat, Centre for Genomic Regulation, Spain
Roderic Guigo Serra, Centre for Genomic Regulation, Spain
Alfonso Valencia, Barcelona Supercomputing Center, Spain
Diane Kovats, International Society for Computational Biology, US

Programme Committee

Can Alkan, Lab for Bioinformatics & Computational Genomics, Bilkent University, Turkey
Alessandro Bagnato, Milano University, Italy
Philipp Bucher, EPFL, Switzerland
Mario Cáceres, Comparative and Functional Genomics group, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Spain
Lars Feuk, Uppsala University, Sweden
Elisabetta Giuffra, INRA Science and Impact, Paris, France
Jakob Hull Havgaard, Center for non-coding RNA in Technology and Health, Frederiksberg, Denmark
Ines Hellmann, Anthropology and Human Genetics, LMU Munich, Germany
Inge Jonassen, Bergin University, Norway
Birte Kehr, Berlin Institute of Health, Germany
Martin Kircher, Berlin Institute of Health, Germany
Frank Panitz, Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Faculty of Science and Technology, Aarhus University, Denmark
Graziano Pesole, Università degli studi di Bari Aldo Moro, Bari, Italy
Simon Rasmussen, Centre for Biological Sequence Analysis (CBS), Denmark
Erik Rivals, The National Centre for Scientific Research, Paris, France
Hugues Roest Crollius, Institut de Biologie de l’École Normale Supérieure, Paris, France

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

Late-breaking Research Submission now being accepted.  Deadline 29 January 2017

NGS 2017 invites abstract submissions for consideration for oral presentations or poster. Abstracts may be either original unpublished work or original work that was published or accepted for publication at a high-impact journal. Published and un-published original works will be selected on the basis of the extended abstracts and proposed for either an oral or a poster presentation.

Authors with un-published original work selected for presentation at the conference will be invited to submit a full-length paper or extended abstract with full data for peer-review to published* in the ISCB Community Journal, ISCB NGS-BARCELONA channel. All posters will also be invited to submit in poster format to the ISCB NGS-BARCELONA channel.

The program will address a wide range of topics such as genome assembly, variant characterization and analysis, gene expression, population history, and disease. Sizeable space is dedicated to submission-based presentations from the below topics.

Topics include:

• Copy number variation in population genomics and translational applications
• Software and algorithms for high-throughput sequencing technologies
• NGS data management and visualisation
• Applications of NGS in:
  • Population genomics
  • Metagenomics
  • Single cell analysis
  • Clinical and translational biology
    
    

**Abstract text limited to 300 words

Plan to submit your research to this engaging conference!

DEADLINE TO SUBMIT A LATE-BREAKING ABSTRACT IS JANUARY 31, 2017!

For submission support, please contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Abstracts received before the due date will be considered for oral presentations and/or poster presentations. If your abstract is accepted, it will be included in an abstract booklet that will be distributed to all conference participants. Accepted original research abstracts will also be invited to publish in the ISCB Community Journal at the author's’ expense.

* Authors are responsible for publishing fees. ISCB members receive a 20% discount.

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Learn More About Our Sponsors

Please check back for updates.

SPONSORSHIP OPPORTUNITIES

Hosted by the International Society for Computational Biology and the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG), the Next Generation Sequencing Conference 2017 (NGS 2017) is a dedicated meeting on cutting-­-edge approaches to the processing and analysis of Next Generation Sequencing data, with a focus on structural variation and population genomics.

Topics to include:
• State of the art technologies, and technologies under development
• Novel software and algorithms
• Novel applications of NGS technologies in genomics and biology
• Post genome sequencing analysis, including RNA analysis, transcription factor binding sites profiling, histone modifications, nucleosome positioning, copy number variation, genotyping, RNA structure, dynamics of transcription and translation, etc.
• Research breakthroughs based on exhaustive applications of NGS.
• Clinical and translational applications
• Applications to agriculture and biotechnology
• Societal implications: forensic law, sociology research, history, etc.
• Economical impacts

The conference will also aim to encompass the associated computational challenges:
• Novel algorithms, methods and pipelines
• Comparative benchmarks of methods
• Hardware developments specific to NGS
• High performance computing in NGS
• Computation in portable NGS devices, micro- and nano-NGS devices
• Computation during data acquisition

The meeting will draw together researchers from diverse backgrounds who develop and apply novel tools to sequencing data.  Topics covered will include, but are not limited to, genome assembly, variant characterization and analysis, gene expression, population history, disease, and more!


The conference program will be a combination of keynote talks from renown scientists with research focusing on structural variation and population genomics, a selection of thought-provoking submitted abstract talks, technology and applications talks, as well as posters.

On average, most of attendees are from Europe with remaining attendees from the United States, Canada, Asia, Africa, & Australia. Total attendees expected in 2017: 200

This year’s conference will take place in April 3-7, 2017, in Barcelona, Spain.


Sponsorship Opportunities

NGS 2017 is seeking sponsorship from institutions looking to engage with a dynamic audience that specializes in high-throughput sequencing and next generation sequencing data arenas.

Sponsorship packages are designed to provide maximum exposure. Customized packages are available to fit any marketing budget.

Contact Andrew P. Falter, Exhibit and Sponsor Sales, ISCB, at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to confirm your presence at NGS 2017 and meet your target audience.

SPONSORSHIP OPPORTUNITIES

- Two (2) complimentary conference registrations
- Logo slide during opening session
- Logo with link to organization on conference website index page
- Logo with link to organization on conference website sponsorship page
- Sponsor in conference program with organization name & description
- Half-page black and white advertisement in conference program

- One (1) complimentary conference registrations
- Logo slide during opening session
- Logo with link to organization on conference website index page
- Logo with link to organization on conference website sponsorship page
- Sponsor in conference program with organization name & description
- Quarter-page black and white advertisement in conference program

 



- One (1) complimentary conference registrations
- Logo slide during opening session
- Logo with link to organization on conference website index page
- Logo with link to organization on conference website sponsorship page
- Sponsor in conference program with organization name & description
- Quarter-page black and white advertisement in conference program

 



- One (1) complimentary conference registrations
- Logo slide during opening session
- Logo with link to organization on conference website index page
- Logo with link to organization on conference website sponsorship page
- Sponsor in conference program with organization name & description

• - 50% discount off of a Quarter-page advertisement in conference program (black & white)
• - Quarter-page advertisement in ISCB Newsletter (Silver and Bronze only, full color, issue of choice)
• - Discounted registration at 25% off regular registration fee
• - Electronic list of conference delegates post-event
• - Organization recognized in ISCB Annual Report with logo and link to preferred URL
• - One (1) exhibit exhibitor showcase display space
• - One (1) 15-minute technology track (scheduled by the organizers)
• - Electronic list of conference delegates pre-event
• - Brochure in delegate registration bag
• - Half-page advertisement in ISCB Newsletter (full color, issue of choice, Gold Level only)
• - Up to 5 job posts on ISCB website
• - One complimentary banner ad on website (to run for 90 days)

• One (1) 15-minute technology track: $1250 ** Technology Track Sessions are limited. Slots will be reserved for sponsors first followed by a first come first-served assignment.

Organizations will benefit by acknowledgement in the conference program, onsite signage, on the conference website, and through delegate appreciation of your support.

- Refreshment Break: $500 with option to bring logo napkins or place flyers on coffee stations
- Lunch: $3000
- Name Badge Lanyards: $1000
- Inclusion of marketing materials in delegate bags: $500
- Purchase pre-conference registration list: $250
- Purchase post-conference registration list: $500
- Delegate Bags: $1000
- Keynote Speaker Sponsorship: $2000

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Become a Sponsor/Exhibitor

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TECHNOLOGY TALKS

Please check back for updates.