Christophe Dessimoz

ISMB is ranked A in CORE largely thanks to @yannponty.bsky.social ‘s tireless efforts. I believe ECCB could/should also be ranked A considering the scientific committee’s qualifications, acceptance rate etc. But it takes a lot of work to do the advocacy….

Advances for health, biodiversity & trustworthy AI; new connections; a unique artistic performance; Geneva-wide celebrations – and cross-societal recognition of the value of life-science data. See highlights from the record 2026 ECCB @eccb-europe.bsky.social

The PhD and Postdoc application links are now live! Come join me at UNIL to work on deep learning for protein structure, interactions & design. pickybinders.org#open-positions

From tracing human migrations with ancient DNA to uncovering how one genome gives rise to many cell types: the insights & networking continued on ECCB day 2. Keynotes: Anna-Sapfo Malaspinas, University of Lausanne; Stephen Quake, Stanford University eccb2026.org/schedule/int... #ECCB2026

SIB Biodata Resources were on show at ECCB @eccb-europe.bsky.social, through posters and info sessions by experts across our network. The programme also featured SIB scientists presenting on pathogen surveillance, new AI tools and more: eccb2026.org/schedule/int... #ECCB2026

ECCB’s record 980 scientific talks and posters ended yesterday with a keynote on large-scale immune data from Aleksandra Walczak, @cnrs.fr See the full scientific programme: eccb2026.org/schedule/int... #ECCB2026

In Geneva for #ECCB2026 ! Been a long time since I was last at this meeting. Talking tomorrow in morning session about bioinformatics for pathogen surveillance with legends of the field: @angieshinrichs.bsky.social @firefoxx66.bsky.social and @theo.io ! eccb2026.org/schedule/par...

Remember this? bsky.app/profile/did:... Rigorous visualization of the structure in your high-dimensional data. Fantastic work by @dhdegroot.bsky.social With help of the reviewers of Nat Biotech it is now updated, extended an officially published here: www.nature.com/articles/s41... 1/n

Biological Databases are critical infrastructure - not projects. As so much effort is put into harnessing AI to solve all our problems, we are allowing the foundational data resources crumble. Treat biological databases as infrastructure, not projects www.nature.com/articles/d41...

🌿 Just published in Bioinformatics Advances: "AmpliPhy improves gene trees by adding homologous sequences without affecting alignments"  Find it here: https://doi.org/10.1093/bioadv/vbag222 Authors include: @dongwookkim.bsky.social, @dessimoz.bsky.social

AI-driven protein structure prediction lets us revisit the question once impossible to tackle at scale: What can we learn from the evolution of protein structures? Our new preprint reviews how to properly assess the quality of structure-based alignments and trees. 🧵1/5 📄 doi.org/10.32942/X2T10D

AmpliPhy is now reviewed and published in @bioinfoadv.bsky.social! AmpliPhy improves your gene trees by adding homologs with a single command, based on the observations from a quantitative benchmark design. More details in quoted 🧵 📄 doi.org/10.1093/bioadv/vbag222 💾 github.com/DessimozLab/ampliphy

This will be an amazing tutorial on Comparative Genomics, covering the foundations, key challenges, and practical tips from the Orthology Clinic! It’s part of ECCB, but you can also join the tutorial only on September 3rd! #GenevaLovesData

I'm really excited about SeqSets reaching fruition. Sequencing pathogen genomes is impactful: this data enables us to design vaccines, to predict future evolution, and more. But at the moment, getting scientific credit mostly requires writing a paper, not just sequencing a genome. [1/n]

Switzerland and Geneva hold a trump card for shaping trustworthy AI, argues SIB Executive Director Christophe Dessimoz in an opinion published in Le Temps. Read in English: www.sib.swiss/news/switzer... French: www.letemps.ch/opinions/la-... @dessimoz.bsky.social @letemps.ch

📢 Genome Informatics 2026 (Hinxton UK + virtual, 2–4 Dec) is coming! Some confirmed speakers now listed: coursesandconferences.wellcomeconnectingscience.org/event/genome... Early-bird registration & bursary deadlines: 7 Sept. Abstract deadline: 5 Oct. Please submit your work & join us!

✨ ELIXIR will be at #ECCB2026, holding two workshops and an ELIXIR track programme showcasing highlights and impact of ELIXIR Community activities! More information 👉 https://loom.ly/emMscGg

@dessimoz.bsky.social at #JOBIM2026: “creating a database is like adopting a puppy, it’s fun in the beginning but it’s a long-term commitment!”

Spatial protein inference 🧬🧪 Predict protein landscapes from transcriptomics using spatial & single-cell omics data. Tutorial organized by: Hatice Ulku Osmanbeyoglu and Zeyuan Meng Register here: 👉 eccb2026.org/registration... #ECCB2026 #SpatialOmics #Multiomics #ComputationalBiology

The cradle of humankind. The origin of our species. Home to the deepest human genetic diversity on earth. And the most underrepresented continent in the global genomic databases driving scientific discovery. Closing that gap is the work of the African Bioinformatics Institute.

We’re looking for a Director 👇 ABI is seeking a senior scientific leader to help grow a continental hub for bioinformatics and computational biology. Applications close 30 June 2026. Apply: webapp.placementpartner.com/wi/vacancy/?... #AfricanScience #Bioinformatics

Looking to contribute to the future of #ScientificResearch 🧪 in 🇨🇭? The SNSF Research Council is recruiting 21 new members for its six committees. The mandates will start in April and October 2027. Interested? 🗓️ Apply by 14 June 2026. www.snf.ch/en/pk2qftWyV...

Happy to announce the release of TOGA2 data for 68 turtle genomes, generated with a cryptodiran and a pleurodiran turtle reference. The combined TOGA2 annotation consistently improves annotation completeness compared with RefSeq. All data at genome.senckenberg.de/download/TOGA2. Genome browsers ...

Just a shout-out to the folks over at @pathoplexus.org and, importantly, all the scientists sharing genomic data with such amazing speed. It's great to see the field having moved to a new platform, with non-transparent platforms being a thing of the past. Fantastic.

A great collaboration with @plazi-species.bsky.social and @idsianlp.bsky.social - thanks to the @snsf.ch for selecting our project for funding support!

With Eugene Koonin, we wrote a rather comprehensive review on the origin, evolution and organization of the #virosphere. We describe all 10 viral realms and the logic behind them, and so much more. Check it out! comptes-rendus.academie-sciences.fr/biologies/ar...

Incredibly proud of the @pathoplexus.org team for getting this up so quickly. In an outbreak like this, it's critical to share data quickly & openly - so scientists can do public health analyses (like the @nextstrain.org builds) - while still protecting the right to publish on generated sequences.

virological.org/t/complete-s...

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...

👏👏 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

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: https://www.embo.org/funding/fellowships-grants-and-career-support/young-investigator-programme/ #LifeSciences #research #funding

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

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