Southampton Bi-Omics Conference Shortest Grant Application Prize Winner

On May 22nd, over 100 delegates from across the Wessex region with an interest in ‘Omic technologies attended the inaugural Southampton Bi-Omics Conference.

Dr Dennis Wang, Lecturer in Bioinformatics and Genomic Medicine at the University of Sheffield talked about the challenges faced by large-scale multi-omics data integration and analysis.

The interdisciplinary programme included presentations from across the University discussing a wide range of topics from machine learning of single cell sequencing to identification and characterisation of rare diseases and cancer. In addition, colleagues from Public Health England and the University of Portsmouth discussed sequencing applications in recent Lassa fever outbreaks and characterisation of not so recent DNA samples from the Mary Rose! 

Our four Early Career Researchers grant competition finalists pitched their proposal to the audience.  Hannah Connabeer, a postgraduate research student in Ocean and Earth Science (National Oceanography Centre), was voted the winner by the audience for her project entitled “Using algae for sustainable aquaculture”. Her prize is a £2,500 research award, sponsored by the Institute for Life Sciences, and an invitation to present the results at next years’ Bi-Omics Conference.

Hannah commented: “I am thrilled to have won the Bi-Omics grant. It will allow me to carry out my research to a much greater resolution than I otherwise would have been able to achieve. The results from these experiments will help to build a more holistic understanding of the diatom transcriptome. This information will increase the feasibility of using algae as a sustainable alternative feedstock for aquaculture”.