Links within this page:
- Sponsored Workshop - From Open Data to Genomics Pipeline: Building Bioinformatics Workflows with AI on AWS
- Workshop 1 - Bioinformatics as a Career: An insider view
- Workshop 2 - Nurturing an Early Career (EC) growth ecosystem in Canada
- Workshop 3 - Reproducible Research: Essentials for Managing Your Data
Sponsored Workshop - From Open Data to Genomics Pipeline: Building Bioinformatics Workflows with AI on AWS
Date: May 27, 2026 8:00-13:00
Objective: Discover and access public genomics data through the Registry of Open Data on AWS, explore it interactively in a Amazon Lightsail for Research notebook with boto3, and use Kiro to generate and run a real pharmacogenomics variant-calling pipeline on AWS HealthOmics — covering the full path from finding data to producing analysis results.
Audience: Graduate students, researchers, bioinformaticians, and developers who want a practical tour of working with AWS Open Data across the console, CLI, and Python SDK, plus an introduction to AI-assisted workflow development for managed genomics compute — with no prior AWS or Nextflow expertise required.
Capacity: 60
Format: In-person
Room: CR-3
| Timing | Outline | Facilitator |
| 08:00-09:00 | Breakfast and Registration | CBHC |
| 09:00-09:10 | Welcome & Introduction to AWS Open Data | Beryl Rabindran |
| 09:10-09:30 | Presentation: Intro to Amazon S3, Amaxon Lightsail for Research, AWS HealthOmics, and Kiro | Hailey D'Silva |
| 09:30-09:50 | Module 1: Accessing Data from AWS Open Data
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Cristian Chicas and AWS team |
| 09:50-10:10 | Module 2: Lightsail for Research
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Cristian Chicas and AWS team |
| 10:10-12:00 | Module 3: Genomics Use Case with Kiro
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Cristian Chicas and AWS team |
| 12:00-13:00 | Lunch & Networking Session (includes participants from all workshops) | CBHC |
Workshop 1 - Bioinformatics as a Career: An insider view
Date: May 27, 2026 8:00-13:00
Objective: This event will be led by current Bioinformatics, Computational Biology and Data Science (BCBDS) trainees to raise awareness about and engage undergraduate students in the broad applications and career paths in BCBDS.
Audience: Undergraduates interested in learning more about BCBDS career paths and graduate students keen to share their BCBDS experiences
Capacity: 60
Format: Hybrid
Room: CR-2 and online
| Timing | Outline |
|---|---|
| 08:00-9:00 | Breakfast and Registration |
| 09:00-9:15 | Welcome & Introduction (In-person + Virtual) Facilitator: Tarah Lynch, Founder & Eecutive Leadership Coach, Synergy Scientific Coaching & Consulting and Program Lead - Genomics and Bioinformatics, University of Calgary
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| 09:15-09:30 | Gauging career prospect sentiments
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| 09:30-10:15 | Interactive Panel Discussion with Trainee Presenters (In-person + Virtual) Each shares educational background, research focus and career journey:
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| 10:15-10:45 | Coffee Break & Networking |
| 10:45-12:15 | Hands-on activity: Designing your career path Facilitator: Comment start Amanda Mohabeer, Founder, Beyond the BSc
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| 12:15 | Concluding Activity |
| 12:15-13:00 | Lunch & Networking Session (includes participants from all workshops) |
Workshop 2 - Nurturing an Early Career (EC) growth ecosystem in Canada
Date: May 27, 2026 12:00-17:00
Objective: This event will be a working group meeting for postdocs and early career (EC) professionals to gather the infrastructure, resources and career supports needed to elevate and retain ECs in Bioinformatics, Computational Biology and Data Science (BCBDS) careers in Canada.
Audience: Early career professionals and postdocs in BCBDS who want to become aware of available career supports and bring attention to the gaps, and leaders who want to collaborate on finding solutions to help ECs in BCBDS excel.
Capacity: 45
Format: In-person
Room: CR-2
| Timing | Outline |
|---|---|
| 12:00-13:00 | Registration + Lunch & Networking Session (includes participants from all workshops) |
| 13:00-13:15 | Welcome & Introductions (In-person) Audience participation activity on Slido: Facilitator: Tarah Lynch, Founder & Executive Leadership Coach, Synergy Scientific Coaching & Consulting and Program Lead - Genomics and Bioinformatics, University of Calgary
|
| 13:15-13:30 | Gauging career sentiments
Per table: Describe how you feel about your overall career in weather terms & explain why |
| 13:30-14:30 | Setting the Stage - Early Career Professional Perspectives Each shares career journey, opportunities and challenges encountered to date:
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| 14:30-15:00 | Coffee Break & Networking |
| 14:45-16:15 | Breakout Groups Each to identify opportunities and barriers, and propose solutions/strategies:
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| 16:15-17:00 | Report Back & Next Steps
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| 17:00 | Concluding Activity Audience participation activity on Slido:
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Workshop 3 - Reproducible Research: Essentials for Managing Your Data
Date: May 27, 2026 12:00-17:00
Objective: This workshop will equip participants with the essential methods and tools to manage their data efficiently, ensuring their research is reproducible, discoverable and machine-actionable.
Audience: Graduate students who want to make their work more Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable. Participants should have basic familiarity with Unix/Linux and command line tools.
Requirements: You will also require your own laptop computer. Minimum requirements: 1024×768 screen resolution, 1.5GHz CPU, 2GB RAM, 10GB free disk space, recent versions of Windows, Mac OS X or Linux (Most computers purchased in the past 3-4 years likely meet these requirements). This workshop requires participants to complete pre-workshop tasks and readings.
Capacity: 45
Format: In-person
Room: CR-3
| Timing | Outline |
|---|---|
| 12:00-13:00 | Registration + Lunch & Networking Session (includes participants from all workshops) |
| 13:00-13:15 | Welcome & Introductions |
| 13:15-13:30 | Module 1: Introduction to Research Data Management (RDM) - Mélanie Courtot
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| 13:30-14:30 | Module 2: Version Control with Git - Mitchell Shiell and Linda Xiang (20 min lecture, 40 min lab)
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| 14:30-15:00 | Coffee Break & Networking |
| 15:00-16:00 | Module 3: Organizing Your Data for Machine-Actionability - Hardeep Nahal-Bose and Edmund Su (20 min lecture, 40 min lab)
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| 16:00-17:00 | Module 4: Facilitating Discovery of your Datasets using Open Source Platforms and Standards - David Bujold (20 min lecture, 40 min lab)
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