OMA (part of SwissOrthology) mapped rice seed germination genes to their counterparts in barley, revealing when and where they're active — a step towards improving crop resilience. Another example of how SIB Resources tackle challenges from food security to human health.
👉 sib.swiss/services/ope...

Interested in predicting the dynamics of antibiotic resistance? Come work with us! We're looking for two postdocs to develop predictive models of resistance. We're interested in a range of approaches (mathematical & statistical modelling, causal inference, machine learning).
tinyurl.com/6c4y3jke

(1/2) Interested in plant evolution? We are opening two PhD positions in my lab at QGG - Aarhus University, where you will combine comparative genomics and machine learning to better understand and improve crop traits.
#PlantSciJobs #evolution #genomics

Evolutionary analysis by Martijn Huynen further suggests that this architecture emerged in lineages where canonical complex I was lost or extensively modified, pointing to a new solution for spatial organization of oxidative phosphorylation 5/6

AI agents + biology? 🤖🧬
Learn how MCP lets LLMs query and reason over biological data.

Tutorial organized by: Damian Szklarczyk

Register here:
👉 eccb2026.org/registration...

#ECCB2026 #AIinBiology

SIB Training organizes ~60 courses per year in the computational life sciences in Switzerland and online, which are open to attend for all researchers. We have launched a training needs survey. It takes 5-10 minutes to complete.
forms.office.com/e/WmSxcBeMYX
@sib.swiss

⏳ 10 days left for early-bird rates at #ECCB2026!
Join over 1,000 experts in bioinformatics, AI, and data science in Geneva from 31 Aug until 4 Sept.
Register now to secure your place: ⚠️tutorials, workshops & social events have limited spots.
👉More info: eccb2026.org/registration...

Two talented scientists awarded PhD Fellowships in Life Sciences Each year, the Doctoral School organises an international competition to award fellowships. The aim is to attract the most promising candidates wishing to complete a doctorate in life sciences within ...

👏👏 Congratulations to the 2 recipients of the #FBM #Fellowships 2026:
🔹 Tiffany ROSSEL
🔹 Ali YAZDIZADEH KHARRAZI

www.unil.ch/news/en/1772...

📣 Still 1 week to submit manuscripts for #ECCB2026 organized in Geneva, Switzerland, in September!
We are inviting work that demonstrates development of new computational techniques and their applications in life sciences.

👉 More info: eccb2026.org/call-proceed...
🔜 Deadline: 16 March 2026

🚀 ECCB 2026 will host a Career Workshop on Wed 2 Sept open to all participants. Whether you are considering academia, industry, or alternative paths, your input will help us design a useful workshop, to reflect your needs, questions, & aspirations.
👉 Fill out this poll: tinyurl.com/2shevyst

A screenshot of the new Pathoplexus homepage showing all viruses now supported, including Dengue and Yellow Fever, which are circled in red

1/ 🦟 Big news: #Pathoplexus now supports Dengue virus & Yellow Fever virus - two arboviruses responsible for over 400 million infections and up to 94,000 deaths per year.
Here's what’s new in our latest update 👇🏻

Read the full update: pathoplexus.org/news/2026-03... 📰

📣 #ECCB2026 proceedings deadline extended to 16 March 13:00 CET
Submit to 1 of our 6️⃣ sessions:
🔹 Genomics
🔹 Transcriptomics & gene regulation
🔹 Proteins & structural biology
🔹 Systems biology
🔹 Environmental bioinformatics
🔹 ELIXIR Communities
👉 More info: eccb2026.org/call-proceedings

Very nice learning paths at @sib.swiss: www.sib.swiss/training/lea...

We’re hiring: Research Group Leader in computational biology.

Are you generating more research ideas than you can explore? Lead cutting-edge AI & biology research at EMBL-EBI.

Apply by 11 April 2026: embl.wd103.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/EMBL/j...

#ScienceCareers @ewaldlab.org @embl.org

How to maximise the value of public investment, strengthen #OpenScience and international collaboration, and unlock the full potential of #FAIR www.nature.com/articles/s41... with colleagues from @sib.swiss & @elixir-europe.org

From @dessimoz.bsky.social and colleagues in @nature.com 's #Scientific #Data | The missing link in FAIR data policy: biodata resources in life sciences | #FAIR #Genomics #OpenScience #OpenSource #Proteomics 🧬 🖥️ 🧪 🔓
⬇️
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Apply now! The 2026 call for the EMBO Young Investigator Programme is now open with a deadline of 1 April 12:00 midday CEST. 🧪

More info here:
www.embo.org/funding/fellowships-gran...
#LifeSciences #research #funding

Robert Waterhouse — Earth BioGenome Project Rob Waterhouse has always been fascinated by life’s many interconnections, from his childhood on an isolated ranch in Swaziland to his current role leading a community of more than 1,100 researchers a...

Spotlight @ebpgenome.bsky.social www.earthbiogenome.org/newsletter-b... --- thanks to the fantastic #biodiversity #genomics @ergabiodiv.bsky.social #community!

(1/3) I am very happy to share that I’ll be moving to Aarhus University as an Assistant Professor in March. During these years, I’ve met so many great people who supported me on this path, and even if I can’t name everyone here, I’m truly grateful to all of you!

🧬 Just out in Bioinformatics Advances: "OMAnnotator: A novel approach to building an annotated consensus genome sequence". 

Full article available: https://doi.org/10.1093/bioadv/vbag015 

Authors include: @dessimoz.bsky.social, @whynevers.bsky.social

For each orthologous gene family, we constructed three MSAs: original, computed by applying sequence aligners directly to the input sequences; enriched, computed by aligning the combined set of orthologs and homologs identified by database search; and impoverished, obtained by removing the added homologs from the enriched MSA. We then used TCS to quantify congruence of the resulting trees against the known taxonomy. The normalized difference in congruence between the original and enriched trees captures the joint impact of sequence addition on alignment and tree inference. The normalized difference between the original and impoverished trees reflects the effect on alignment quality alone. The effect on tree inference can then be estimated by subtraction. We observed a positive impact of homolog enrichment on phylogenetic tree inference step, regardless of the sequence aligner used to build the alignments. Notably, the impact of sequence addition on alignments was marginal.

We devised a benchmark method to quantify the impact of homolog enrichment on phylogenetic inference, decomposing the effects on MSA quality, tree inference quality, and rooting. We show homolog enrichment improves tree inference, while effects on alignments remain marginal. 🧵2/n

Can ever-increasing sequence databases improve phylogenetic reconstruction of a gene family? Our new preprint introduces AmpliPhy, a pipeline that automates homolog enrichment to improve gene tree inference, built on a robust phylogenomic benchmark scheme. 🧵1/n
📃 doi.org/10.64898/2026.01.26.701724

A 5500-year-old Treponema pallidum genome from Sabana de Bogotá, Colombia Treponematosis, a bacterial infection caused by Treponema pallidum subspecies and T. carateum (yaws, bejel, syphilis, pinta), has afflicted humans for millennia. Despite paleopathological evidence and...

Treponemal diseases might have been with us much longer than previously thought! In our recent study, we used ancient DNA to reconstruct a 5,500-year-old 𝘛𝘳𝘦𝘱𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘮𝘢 𝘱𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘥𝘶𝘮 genome, revealing a previously unknown divergent subspecies.
You can check it out here:
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

🧬 Une découverte d'une équipe internationale, dont des scientifiques de l'Unil et du CHUV, apporte de nouveaux éléments attestant d'une grande #diversité de #pathogènes dans les Amériques bien avant l'arrivée des Européens.
👉 www.unil.ch/news/fr/1768...

@unil.bsky.social @sib.swiss #ADNancien #chuv

Millenia-old pathogen DNA shed light onto its evolution YouTube video by Département de Biologie Computationnelle - UNIL

👏 Congratulations on this new publication and the great video about the discovery www.youtube.com/watch?v=qewc...

In remembrance of Peer Bork  | EMBL EMBL and its community are deeply saddened by the death of Peer Bork, the organisation’s Interim Director General.

Shocking and very sad news. Peer Bork passed away much too soon. Our thoughts are with his family, friends, and the entire EMBL community. www.embl.org/news/embl-an...

Three further SIB knowledgebases gain prestigious European recognition A total of eight expertly curated knowledgebases developed by SIB scientists are now designated as ELIXIR Core Data Resources (CDRs) – with the three new additions representing half of those sel...

🎉 Congratulations to Bgee and the two complementary SwissOrthology knowledgebases, OMA and OrthoDB, for being selected as ELIXIR Core Data Resources! See more👇

@bgee.org @marcrr.bsky.social @dessimoz.bsky.social @elixir-europe.org

This needs boosting.
How we share data now, determines how prepared we are for tomorrow. That includes having access to *all* who need it (inccitizen scientists like @ryanhisner.bsky.social) & being able to use it in dashboards & apps.
Having one place control it all - is dangerous.

#OpenScience

Fresh conflicts erupt around giant database for flu and COVID-19 sequences Critics say “autocratic” behavior by GISAID could hamper response to a future pandemic

“[P]utting data into GISAID is like dropping it in a mail slot in an unmarked building,” says @colincarlson.bsky.social. “It’s wonderful that there’s so much cool stuff in that building. It would be great if we knew who owned it, or who paid for it, or what they plan to do with it.”
#IDsky 🧪

We are pleased to welcome 3 new Group Leaders to SIB as of 1 January 2026.
Nadine Fournier leads the Biomedical Data Science Facility at UNIGE
Tim Roloff-Handschin and Helena Seth-Smith (UZH) join SIB’s microbial genomics community.
These appointments strengthen SIB’s network and expertise.