Microbial Bioinformatics

Micro binfie podcast

Science EN ↓ 155 episodes

Microbial Bioinformatics is a rapidly changing field marrying computer science and microbiology. Join us as we share some tips and tricks we’ve learnt over the years. If you’re student just getting to grips to the field, or someone who just wants to keep tabs on the latest and greatest - this podcast is for you. The hosts are Dr. Lee - a bioinformatician in the United States, Dr. Nabil-Fareed Alikhan from the University of Oxford (UK), and Prof. Andrew Page from Origin Sciences (UK) and bring together years of experience in microbial bioinformatics. The opinions expressed here are our own and...

Author

Microbial Bioinformatics

Category

Science

Podcast website

soundcloud.com

Latest episode

Apr 9, 2026

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Episodes

54 SARS-CoV-2 In Canada and addressing data sharing and privacy 01.04.2021

The Canadians have taken over the podcast - AGAIN ! Join guest host Dr. Emma Griffiths, as she talks with Dr. Finn McGuire and Dr. William Hsiao about the SARS-CoV-2 genomics epidemiology efforts in Canada. Cancogen website : https://www.genomecanada.ca/en/cancogen

53 SARS-CoV-2 surveillance in Canada with CANCOGEN 25.03.2021

The Canadians have taken over the podcast ! Join guest host Dr. Emma Griffiths, as she talks with Dr. Finlay McGuire and Dr. William Hsiao about the SARS-CoV-2 genomics epidemiology efforts in Canada. Cancogen website : https://www.genomecanada.ca/en/cancogen

52 SARS-CoV-2 sequencing in Denmark with Mads Albertsen 18.03.2021

Denmark is one of the leading countries in the world forSARS-CoV-2 genomic surveillance. Prof Mads Albertsen chats to us about SARS-CoV-2 sequencing in Denmark, how it got started, logistics, tweaked protocols and things hes learnt along the way. Edited by Niamh Page

51 SARSCOV2 Round-up 3 and updates from Denmark 11.03.2021

We discuss the latest developments in SARS-CoV-2 genomics over the last 2 weeks with Mads Albertsen and the latest developments in Denmark. Denmark covid stats: www.covid19genomics.dk/statistics Tools and resources mentioned: https://outbreak.info/ https://virological.org/t/outbreak-info-sars-cov-2-mutation-situation-reports/629 https://gitlab.com/johan.bernal.morales/sarscov2 Publications mention...

50 Atypical invasive non-typhoidal Salmonella in The Gambia 25.02.2021

Invasive non-typhoidal Salmonella is a significant public health challenge in Africa. We talk to Abdoulie Kanteh and Grant Mackenzie about their work in The Gambia, and their use of genomics to understand the serovars in circulation. Manuscript: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.02.18.431831v2

49 SARS-CoV-2 Tools and resources update 22.02.2021

We are joined by Peter van Heusden to discuss all the latest developments in SARS-CoV-2 genomics, particularly around tools and resources. We also discuss the challenges of building and sharing data in large scale sequencing endeavours. Tools and resources: Nextalign github.com/nextstrain/nextclade/releases COG mutation explorer http://sars2.cvr.gla.ac.uk/cog-uk/ Grinch https://cov-lineages.org Ne...

48 SARS-CoV-2 More Variants of Concern and updates from Africa 20.02.2021

We discuss the latest developments in SARS-CoV-2 genomics over the last 2 weeks with Peter van Heusden, covering the growing list of Variants of Concern and the latest developments in Africa. Papers & resources mentioned: American birds (677) - https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.02.12.21251658v2 https://github.com/cov-lineages/pango-designation PHE thresholds for different variants: http...

47 SARS-CoV-2 Rapid roundup and questions answered 08.02.2021

We present a rapid round up of SARS-CoV-2 questions and issues, hopefully with some answers, so that you can stay on top of the latest in SARS-CoV-2 genomics. Recorded 5 February 2021. Topics covered: Why missing 1 SNP can cause lineage assignment to break and how it works? How do we describe lineages with a chain of mutation events? Are we seeing convergent evolution? Co-infections of different l...

46 SARS-CoV-2 genomics resources 08.02.2021

We discuss recent updates to the best SARS-CoV-2 resources, so that you can stay on top of the latest bioinformatics and genomics tools. Recorded 5 February 2021. CoVariants website: http://covariants.org/ Microreact: https://microreact.org/project/cogconsortium/ Lineage reports: https://cov-lineages.org/ CLIMB ARTIC workshop online resources: https://www.climb.ac.uk/artic-and-climb-big-data-joint...

45 Software deep dive: Enterobase 04.02.2021

We chat with Nabil about EnteroBase, and learn about the background to the project, the general benefits of the platforms and some of the strange quirks users might encounter. EnteroBase is an integrated software environment that supports the identification of global population structures within several bacterial genera that include pathogens. Papers: Mentioned PLOS genetics paper: Alikhan et al....

44 How to sequence SARS-CoV-2 using the ARTIC protocol with Joshua Quick 22.01.2021

Joshua Quick from the University of Birmingham talks about "How to sequence SARS-CoV-2 using the ARTIC protocol". This was part of a joint ARTICnetwork & CLIMB-BIG-DATA workshop on COVID-19 data analysis and chaired by Nick Loman. Links: https://twitter.com/Scalene/status/1349402397249056779 https://primalscheme.com/ https://www.protocols.io/view/ncov-2019-sequencing-protocol-v3-locost-bh42j8ye ht...

43 Why use genomics in an epidemic? with Sam Sheppard 21.01.2021

Sam Sheppard from the University of Bath presents at the ARTICnetwork & CLIMB-BIG-DATA workshop on COVID-19 data analysis, motivating why we should use genomics in an epidemic. He gives background on typing schemes, different ways of sequencing and challenges such as how you can analyse large mounts of genomic data. Resources: https://sheppardlab.com/ https://www.climb.ac.uk/artic-and-climb-big-da...

42 Overcoming barriers to SARS-CoV-2 data analysis 20.01.2021

ARTICnetwork & CLIMB-BIG-DATA present a panel discussion on overcoming barriers to SARS-CoV-2 data analysis with Nick Loman and Will Rowe from the University of Birmingham, Áine O'Toole from the University of Edinburgh, Andrew Page from the Quadram Institute and Anna Price from MRC CLIMB and Cardiff University. This was part of a workshop on COVID-19 data analysis. Topics covered: Collecting sampl...

41 SARS-CoV-2 Phylogenomics questions answered 19.01.2021

ARTICnetwork & CLIMB-BIG-DATA present a panel discussion on SARS-CoV-2 phylogenomics with Nick Loman from the University of Birmingham, Verity Hill from the University of Edinburgh, Andrew Page from the Quadram Institute and Anna Price from MRC CLIMB and Cardiff University. This was part of a workshop on COVID-19 data analysis. The topics covered are: More about Polecat Whats the difference betwee...

40 A crash course in SARS-CoV-2 bioinformatics 18.01.2021

Over the last year we've learnt a lot about SARS-CoV-2 genomics. Lee extracts all the insider knowledge from our brains and we give him the honest truth to his probing questions. We cover: Pipelines for SARS-CoV-2 Archives & metadata Read filtering Assembly vs consensus Amplicon data analysis Controls If things look too good Coverage .... Some URLs: https://github.com/connor-lab/ncov2019-artic-nf...

39 Explaining the naming of SARS-CoV-2 new variants 16.01.2021

Andrew talks to Niamh Tumelty from the University of Cambridge about SARS-CoV-2 'new variants' and tries to clear up some of the confusion around all the names flying around. Hopefully this helps to give some insights into the various names you hear, but probably by the time you listen the whole thing will have changed again since this field moves so rapidly. Andrew apologises in advance for all t...

38 Ontologies - effective data sharing 07.01.2021

Dr Emma Griffiths and Dr João Carriço join us for part two of our crash course on ontologies with a focus on effective data sharing.

37 Ontologies - the secret sauce of bioinformatics 24.12.2020

Dr Emma Griffiths and Dr João Carriço join us to give us a crash course on ontologies, the bioinformatics secret sauce that makes all things work well. Microbial genomics data is like the Tower of Babel with public health talking to food regulators talking to agriculture talking to veterinarians talking to healthcare, all with different languages to describe similar things. So how do we get any wo...

36 Roary the pangenome pipeline 10.12.2020

We chat with Andrew about Roary, software for generating a pangenome, and learn about the background to the project, where the name comes from, hidden features and the light hearted FAQ. Paper: https://academic.oup.com/bioinformatics/article/31/22/3691/240757 Software: https://github.com/sanger-pathogens/Roary Documentation: https://sanger-pathogens.github.io/Roary/

35 The Wandering Bioinformatician 26.11.2020

Have you ever wanted to pack in your job and move to the other side of the world? We chat to Phil Ashton on his travels as a bioinformatician, going from the UK to Vietnam to Malawi. We also wander into microbial bioinformatics and his passion for Salmonella and ETEC. Papers mentioned: SNP-sites: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5320690/ Genotyphi: https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomm...

34 Moving from wet to dry with Phil Ashton 12.11.2020

We chat with Phil Ashton about his move from the wet lab into the dry lab to become a bioinformatician, and his experiences with working in public health and in low and middle income countries.

33 The untrained monkey 29.10.2020

Someone shows up at your door wanting to get a nature paper in bioinformatics and they only have a week, where do you start? We talk bioinformatics training with Finlay Maguire.

32 Looking behind Majora's Mask and nation wide tracking of SARS-CoV-2 genomics 15.10.2020

Nick Loman, Sam Nicholls and Radosław Popławski join us to discuss building systems to support the analysis of hundreds of thousands of SARS-CoV-2 genomes in the middle of a pandemic, without using Excel. Preprint about MAJORA: Continuous integration supporting decentralised sequencing for SARS-CoV-2 genomic surveillance: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.10.06.328328 COGUK website: https://www.cogcons...

31 Large scale sequencing of SARS-CoV-2 genomes from one region 01.10.2020

We chat to Justin O'Grady, Andrew Page and Alison Mather about how they went about sequencing 1500 SARS-CoV-2 genomes from one small region in the UK (Norfolk), and how they went about using the data for genomic epidemiology to help get a detailed, near real-time view of the pandemic as it unfolded. Some of the key points are that in Norfolk and surrounding regions: 100 distinct UK lineages were i...

30 How we made the podcast on our 1st birthday 17.09.2020

To help us celebrate a full year of the podcast after our first episode on September 19, 2019, we go into how we started the podcast. We talk about all aspects including how we met, why we started it, and then how we actually started it.

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