Events triennium 2023-2026
Events 2024
Meetings/conferences/ workshops organized by the programme
Delegates of the Global Biodiversity and Health Big Data Alliance (BHBD) visited scientific institutions in Hungary and Serbia from March 25 to 31, 2024
Events 2023
Meetings/conferences/ workshops organized by the programme
The 9th Big Data Forum for Life and Health Sciences & The 21st Asian Bioinformatics Consortium Symposium
Prof. BAO Yiming, Director of NGDC and Chairperson of the BHBD Council, gave a report on the database resources of NGDC, and also introduced the background and activities of BHBD, wishing to enhance the international cooperation and communication on biodiversity and health big data through BHBD network.
The topics of the forum covered a variety of areas including data integration and curation, computational methods and AI models, genomics for precision medicine, RNA (single-cell) omics, and biodiversity and health genomics. For example, Dr. Alex Bateman from European Bioinformatics Institute gave a keynote on the advancements of AI in protein family classification and structure prediction. Prof. ZHANG Xuegong from Tsinghua University elaborated the development and perspective from big data, large foundation models to digital life. Dr. Michael Galperin from National Center of Biotechnology Information, USA reported the updates of the COG (Clusters of Orthologous Genes) database. Two representatives of BHBD members (Prof. Balázs Győrffy, HUN-REN Research Center for Natural Sciences, Hungary; Prof. Amir Ali Abbasi, Quaid-i-Azam University, Pakistan) also gave presentations and shared their featured resource and research progress.
The Big Data Forum for Life and Health Sciences has been held annually by BIG, CAS/CNCB since 2016. The ABC symposium is organized jointly by NGDC in China, KOBIC in Korea, and DDBJ in Japan, and hosted by NGDC in China this year. The events have contributed to the promotion of knowledge exchanges and sharing on biodiversity and health big data among global researchers, as well as the expansion of BHBD networks for future international collaborations.
BHBD Visits Institutions in Hungary and Serbia from 25 to 31 March 2024
Delegates of the Global Biodiversity and Health Big Data Alliance (BHBD), including Prof. Yiming Bao, Chairperson of the BHBD Council, and Mr. Xin Zhang from BHBD Secretariat, visited scientific institutions in Hungary and Serbia from March 25 to 31, 2024, with the delegation of China National Center for Bioinformation.
In Hungary, the delegates visited the HUN-REN Research Centre for Natural Sciences, and had academic communications with researchers from the centre and the Department of Bioinformatics, Semmelweis University.
In Serbia, the delegates met with Dr. Jelena Begović, Minister of Science, Technological Development and Innovation (NITRA), whose team introduced the BIO4 Campus for biomedicine, biotechnology, bioinformatics and biodiversity. The delegation also visited the Institute for Biological Sciences “Sinisa Stankovic” (IBISS) and the Institute for Molecular Genetics and Genetic Engineering (IMGGE) in Belgrade, as well as the BioSense Institute and the Institute for Artificial Intelligence in Novi Sad.
During the visit, the delegation introduced BHBD to the institutions respectively. It is hoped to establish cooperative relationships with relevant scientific research institutions in Hungary and Serbia based on the international platform and network, and actively carry out bilateral science and technology cooperation. Representatives of the institutions in Hungary and Serbia shared their general information and representative work respectively, highly appreciated the achievements of BHBD, and expressed the willingness to join BHBD. All parties wished to carry out further bilateral academic cooperation, personnel training and visits in research fields including bioinformatics, biodiversity, precision medicine, biological big data and artificial intelligence, giving full play to their respective strengths.
This visit has effectively promoted BHBD, enhanced mutual understanding, and achieved positive results such as receiving more applications for joining BHBD. It is expected that it will benefit for advancing the global sharing of big data in the field of life and health.
BHBD is a non-profit, non-governmental organization launched in October 2018 for promoting biodiversity and health big data sharing in the world, under the framework of “Open Biodiversity and Health Big Data Initiative” by the International Union of Biological Sciences (IUBS). BHBD is also an association of the Alliance of International Science Organizations (ANSO).
The 8th Big Data Forum for Life and Health Sciences Beijing, China from October 18th to 20th, 2023.
The forum was hosted by Beijing Institute of Genomics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (BIG, CAS) / China National Center for Bioinformation (CNCB), undertaken by the National Genomics Data Center (NGDC) and the Global Biodiversity and Health Big Data Alliance (BHBD). Over 200 researchers from 9 countries including Brazil, China, France, Japan, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Singapore, UK, and USA participated the conference.
Prof. Yiming Bao, Director of NGDC and Chairperson of the BHBD Council, gave a report on the database resources of NGDC, and also introduced the background and activities of BHBD, wishing to enhance the international cooperation and communication on biodiversity and health big data through BHBD network.
The topic of the forum covered a variety of areas such as biodiversity, database, diseases, and omics. For example, Prof. Jun Yu, former Vice Director of BIG, summarized the progress of the recent 20 years after the Human Genome Project and proposed future perspectives. Dr. Guy Cochrane, Executive Director of the Global Biodata Coalition (GBC), introduced GBC for a sustainable biodata infrastructure. Prof. Yasukazu Nakamura from the National Institute of Genetics, Japan reported the updates from the DNA Data Bank of Japan.
Three BHBD member representatives (Prof. Ana Tereza Ribeiro de Vasconcelos, National Laboratory of Scientific Computation Bioinformatics Laboratory, Brazil; Prof. Sofia Kossida, University of Montpellier, France; Associate Prof. Amjad Ali, National University of Sciences and Technology, Pakistan) and other 20 more experts from home and abroad gave presentations and shared their featured resource and research progress.
The Big Data Forum for Life and Health Sciences has been held annually by BIG, CAS since 2016. The events have contributed to the promotion of knowledge exchanges and sharing on biodiversity and health big data among global researchers, as well as the expansion of BHBD networks for future international collaborations.