More about GoBiG

What GoBiG will be doing
After looking at the results from the GoBiG questionnaire, it seems our main common denominator within the network is the application of sequencing and large-scale data analysis. Also, there’s a high interest (within subgroups of the respondents) in metagenomics, statistics and experimental design, sequence assembly and RNAseq. Therefore, the main focus of the research topics handled by the group should be related to DNA sequencing and large-scale data analysis.

Looking at what people are interested in doing, we find that most people are enthusiastic over everything, particularly discussions about software, databases, resources and methods. Student talks have a large interest, along with seminars with invited speakers. However, for inviting speakers we should use our connections to GOTBIN, so we don’t cause unnecessary competition. The interest in a journal club is also high.

For now, GoBiG will take the form of a journal club, with occasional student seminars. We’ll try this out and see how well it works. It will be possible to get a few course points for these sessions, but we’re still discussing with Erik Kristiansson (who will be examinator of such a course) on the details of that.

Last but not least, people want social interactions. Thus, I think an important part of GoBiG will be our dinner and going-out activities, scheduled after each meeting. Meetings will be held monthly, basically in the last week of each month (with exceptions for June (Midsummer), July (Vacation month) and December (Christmas)). We will try to alternate the day of the week so that everyone are able to join at least at some occasions.

Master of Article
For each of these meeting session one person will be Master of Article. This person should:

  • Select an appropriate article
  • Read it thoroughly
  • E-mail the article to everybody else
  • Make a short presentation of the articles bioinformatics methods, results and conclusions
  • Aim for 10 minutes of presentation
  • Prepare some discussion questions (criticism, novel approaches, choice of databases etc.)

It was decided that the Master of Article should send out the article at least two weeks in advance of the meeting.

Other duties
E-mail list and messaging: Johan Bengtsson
Fika & dinner management: Anna Johnning
Room booking: Fredrik Boulund
Master of article responsible: <not selected yet, responsible for finding a Master of Article for each meeting>

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