We’ve reached the last session of [BC]² 2025 with the closing keynote address from Julia Merkenschlager who is presenting (remotely) on immunology. Title of her talk: “Affinity maturation: Against the odds” #bc2basel

Our [BC]²INGO GAME was won by Nosihle Msomi. Congratulations! #bc2basel

Congratulations to poster prize winners:

Cassandra Litchfield​
Alen Stambolliu​
Benjamin Heiniger​
Laura Voitl​
Océane Follonier​
Siyuan Luo​
Qingyao Huang​

#bc2basel

🧬 Turning science into startups! A special session on launching #bioinformatics startups with insights on IP, legal, funding + case studies (BigOmics Analytics, TrueYouOmics) from experts Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property, Lenz & Staehelin law firm, Innosuisse. Session chairs: @abdullah, Elif Özkırımlı and Vincent Zoete. #bc2basel

We love putting together [BC]² Basel Computational Biology Conference #bc2basel for you every two years.
And we do so much more! Come by our booth to find out about our vision for life-science data and all the services we offer academia and industry.

We now have highlights of the latest research submitted in abstracts: from venom evolution & spatial lipidomics to deep learning, glioma cell states & rapid diagnostics for rare disease. Chaired by Katja Bärenfaller and David Gfeller
#bc2basel #Bioinformatics #Omics #MachineLearning

Gavriilidou: proteins which are co-expressed in venom glands (work done with Giulia Zancolli @dee_unil) are also co-evolving
#bc2basel

Gavriilidou obtained ≈3k co-evolution networks between venoms and other protein families. E.g. dense cluster of 5 venom protein families co-evolving with each other and with many other protein families. The co-evolving proteins include venom-related functions as well as resistance-related functions. #bc2basel

Gavriilidou investigates co-evolution of venomous predators and their preys by phylogenetic profiling, using HogProf https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1007553 #bc2basel

Athina Gavriilidou next, on a topic dear to my heart, evolution of venom 🕷️🐍 #bc2basel

Preprints and server from Craighero's work:
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.04.03.646988v1
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.04.08.588507v3
https://lts2.epfl.ch/ribotly/
#bc2basel

Craighero: "unfortunately I don't have an AI generated image for this, but imagine a ribosome made of cheese or whatever" 😁 #bc2basel

#bc2basel "Highlights - Top abstracts across all scientific themes", starting with Francesco Craighero @fcraighero.bsky.social, using deep learning to understand the regulation of translation elongation, i.e. ribosome stalling.

In ‘Integrative Bioinformatics for Evolutionary and Environmental Processes’ our invited speaker is Eline Lorenzen from University of Copenhagen, Denmark. This session is chaired by Anne-Florence Bitbol and Anna-Sapfo Malaspinas. #bc2basel

Lorenzen: from Arctic sedimentary DNA, reconstruct communities of (marine mammal) species. E.g., with opening of Nares straight at start of inter-glacial, we find DNA of temperate species such as seals. #bc2basel

Lorenzen: unlike polar bears, Bowhead whales had stable environment suitability and genomic population size until very recently. Then human hunting (whaling) arrived, leading to a demographic crash. Modeling predicts that population recovery will be very slow at best. #bc2basel

Lorenzen: Parallel punctuated declines of reconstructed Polar bear habitat, and of population size from genomic data. Small declines in habitat suitability lead to massive declines in population size. #bc2basel

The Arctic is changing fast! In a few years, there will be an ice-free Arctic in the summer https://www.arcticdeathspiral.org/ #bc2basel

Eline Lorenzen, ancient DNA: to understand dynamics of terrestrial mammals, it is difficult to disentangle direct and indirect influence of humans, and environmental changes. For marine species, until recently very little human impact, thus we can see environmental change. #bc2basel

It’s the last day of this year’s [BC]² conference and attendees are gathering for the final parallel sessions:
- Integrative Bioinformatics for Evolutionary and Environmental Processes
- Computational methods for single-cell and spatial omics: from data to biological insights
#bc2basel