How many participants will you be welcoming here at the IPK next week? And how international is the conference?

We have received 74 registrations for the GRC, with participants coming from ten different countries, including Uruguay, China, and the USA. However, one of our keynote speakers from the USA will have to join us via Zoom. Organising business trips is often difficult in the current situation, as they are subject to restrictive approval conditions.   

You explicitly encouraged young scientists to participate in the conference. What was the response?

At the IPK, we are involved in many networks and have used the project managers, or principal investigators (PIs), to advertise the conference and encourage young people to participate. It was worth it - the response was very positive.   

What does the programme entail? How long did it take to prepare?

We began preparing in summer 2024. The result is a three-day programme featuring seven keynote speakers. There will also be 20 presentations, eight shorter flash talks and 15 poster pitches. On the first day, guided tours of the gene bank and the PhenoSphere will be available, followed by a barbecue in the evening. On the second day, there will be a city tour and a conference dinner in Quedlinburg.   

The first session will focus on the FAIR principles. Shouldn’t all scientists have internalised these by now? Or does bioinformatics still need to emphasise the importance of adhering to these principles?

According to the FAIR principles, research data should be findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable, and adhering to these principles is essential when dealing with research data. There is a growing understanding of this, but we do have to keep reminding researchers about it. Of course, compliance initially means more work. However, it is essential for the reusability of data, which benefits science and researchers worldwide.

The Collaborative Research Centre ‘Plant Proteoform Diversity’, which also involves the IPK, deals with data stewardship. This is another perennial issue. 

We want to use this centre as an example to demonstrate the importance of the work of a data steward. I am very pleased that we could secure our former IPK colleague, Dennis Psaroudakis, as a speaker. He now works at Martin Luther University in Halle, where he is employed by Marcel Quint as a data steward in the same Collaborative Research Centre.

The INCREASE project’s web portal, which many people know for its citizen science module on bean diversity, will also be presented. Why did you include INCREASE in the programme?

The INCREASE web portal was just one of 43 topics people applied to present. Without exception, the applications were of a very high standard. The challenge was to distribute all the topics across the individual formats. Our IPK colleague, Markus Oppermann, will be presenting on INCREASE. He is responsible for INCREASE data management at IPK.

In what other ways is the IPK represented?

Nine of the 43 topics originate from the IPK, meaning the institute is well represented. After the keynote speaker from France cancelled at short notice, Nils Stein kindly agreed to step in, for which the entire organising team is truly grateful. Eleven IPK colleagues were involved in the preparations. Matthias Lange and Stephan Weise were our programme committee's chair and deputy chair. 

Which presentation are you most looking forward to personally?

I look forward to Ulrike Wittig from the Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical Studies. We have known each other since 1998, when she was already working on data curation. The FAIR principles had not yet been named as such at that time. Ulrike was a pioneer, and her work has been a great source of motivation for me.

What are the other key topics? What brand-new trends are you addressing in the programme?

I would prefer to focus more on the big picture and talk less about trends. This is the 19th edition of the IB. From the outset, the focus has been on correctly merging data to be used jointly and comprehensively at a later stage, or ‘integrated’, as a computer scientist would say. Initially, this was solely the remit of bioinformatics. 

However, with the introduction of the FAIR principles around ten years ago, this changed fundamentally. Suddenly, every scientist was expected to contribute to making research data easier to integrate. And now comes the next milestone...   

... probably AI.

Correct. The amount of data in science had already been increasing rapidly before ChatGPT and similar tools were introduced, and this trend will continue. But that's not all - the quality of the data and the standards for its collection, storage and analysis have also improved. Without high-quality data, nothing works in AI, and thus in many areas of science.  It is the key to successful research.

This means that bioinformatics is becoming increasingly important through the use of AI. Whereas in the past it was all about providing a service, today we collaborate with scientists in experimental research on an equal footing. This is increasingly reflected in the organisational structure of research institutions.

Keyword structures: Your field has numerous networks, such as NFDI, de.NBI and ELIXIR. What do they do? Which networks are particularly important to the IPK?

de.NBI was launched in 2014. It is the German network for bioinformatics infrastructure and has now secured permanent funding from the federal government. Initially focused on service and training, it now offers cloud infrastructure across all scientific fields. ELIXIR is its European counterpart, and de.NBI forms the German node in this European network.

Unlike de.NBI and ELIXIR, the National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI), which was launched in 2020, comprises 26 consortia from almost all scientific fields and does not focus solely on the life sciences. Here at IPK, we are currently actively involved in three NFDI consortia. For the conference, it is essential that all these networks are present and can further intensify their exchange.

What significance does the symposium have for the IPK? What hopes do you have for the conference in terms of your future work and the future of the IPK? 

The International Symposium on Integrative Bioinformatics takes place in countries all over the world. We are therefore very proud to be hosting it for the second time since 2013. I am sure that we will make a good impression and that our institute will benefit greatly from the exchange. As it is part of the Gatersleben Research Conference series, it is also possible to receive funding from the German Research Foundation. 

What are your plans for Friday evening?

Once we have said goodbye to all the participants, I am eagerly awaiting to enjoy a wheat beer on my terrace at home.