Exploring Open Science in Computational Virology: Li Chuin Chong’s Journey at ECCB2024
The Open Bioinformatics Foundation (OBF) Event Fellowship program aims to promote diverse participation at events promoting open-source bioinformatics software development and open science practices in the biological research community. Li Chuin Chong, a PhD student at the TWINCORE Centre for Experimental and Clinical Infection Research GmbH & Medizinische Hochschule Hannover, Germany, was awarded an OBF Event Fellowship to attend 23rd European Conference on Computational Biology (ECCB2024).
I sincerely offer my gratitude to Open Bioinformatics Foundation (OBF) for the partial support, which allowed me to participate in the 23rd European Conference on Computational Biology (ECCB2024) in Turku, Finland. This was a milestone in my academic journey, as it marked my first international bioinformatics conference as a PhD candidate and my first-ever visit to Finland. This enabled me to share our findings from my PhD project, besides offering a platform to meet and interact with computational scientists from worldwide.
This 5-days conference with the theme of ‘Data and Algorithms for Health and Science’ was well attended by over 750 participants from 50 countries, featuring around 90 talks and 400 poster presentations. ECCB2024 offered five keynote talks and even a lively scientific debate. One talk that particularly stood out to me was by Peer Bork, who delivered an engaging presentation on planetary metagenomics. He discussed SPIRE (Searchable, Planetary-scale Microbiome Resource), a groundbreaking database that compiles microbiome data on a global scale. This resource allows for extensive mining of microbiome information, enabling researchers to identify novel baseline findings through meta-analysis. Bork’s team demonstrated how SPIRE is advancing data-driven discoveries, offering a transformative tool for microbiome studies, with wide-ranging applications in ecology, health, and global biodiversity.
Apart from the interesting talk, ECC2024 gave me an invaluable opportunity to present my research work, entitled “Towards quantifying zoonotic spillover risks of RNA viruses: A comprehensive approach using next-generation sequencing data”. My presentation focused on the identification of novel flaviviruses and coronaviruses, analyzing their hosts and assessing the potential for spillover events. I introduced our open-source software tool, virushunter-virusgatherer (available on GitHub: https://github.com/lauberlab/VirusHunterGatherer), which facilitates novel virus identification, showcasing how it integrates with other bioinformatics tools to provide a robust framework for RNA virology. This opportunity sparked meaningful discussions on the importance of open science and the role of interoperable frameworks in predicting zoonotic events, aligning with the core principles of the OBF. On the last day of the conference, I was excited to receive a free book from Oxford University Press titled ‘An editor’s guide to writing and publishing science’, which will undoubtedly be a valuable resource in my academic journey.
Lastly, I am very grateful to my supervisor, Prof. Dr. Chris Lauber for supporting my attendance at this conference. Again, I thank the OBF for awarding me a travel fellowship to partially cover my travel expenses, and extend my appreciation to the CoViPa consortium, which supports this project. Their support has been instrumental in making my participation at ECCB2024 possible.
Memories from ECCB2024 – Sharing insights from my research and discussing the open science perspective, while connecting with new colleagues from around the world.