Meeting Report: Metagenomics, Metadata and MetaAnalysis (M3) at ISMB 2010

Dawn Field,George M Garrity ,Sarah Hunter ,Owen White,Folker Meyer,Edward F Delong,Susanna Assunta Sansone ,Iddo Friedberg,Guy Cochrane,John Wooley,Renzo Kottmann,Lynette Hirschman,Peter J Sterk

doi:10.4056/sigs.1383476

Abstract

This report summarizes the proceedings of the first day of the Metagenomics, Metadata and MetaAnalysis (M3) workshop held at the Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology 2010 conference. The second day, which was dedicated to the inaugural meeting of the BioSharing initiative is presented in a separate report. The Genomic Standards Consortium (GSC) hosted the first day of this Special Interest Group (SIG) at ISMB to continue exploring the bottlenecks and emerging solutions for obtaining biological insights through large-scale comparative analysis of metagenomic datasets. The M3 SIG included invited and selected talks and a panel discussion at the end of the day involving the plenary speakers. Further information about the GSC and its range of activities can be found at http://gensc.org. Information about the newly established BioSharing effort can be found at http://biosharing.org/.

Highlights

Improved sampling of diverse environments combined with advances in the development and application of ultra-high throughput sequence methodologies are set to accelerate the pace at which new metagenomes are generated
This report summarizes the proceedings of the Metagenomics, Metadata and MetaAnalysis (M3) Special Interest Group at ISMB 2010
Special Interest Group (SIG) meetings at the ISMB are a special way to bring together computational researchers interested in a particular topic. In establishing this new SIG, the Genomic Standards Consortium (GSC) hopes to engage a wider range of bioinformatics researchers in thinking about standards

Summary

Introduction

Improved sampling of diverse environments (e.g. ocean, soil, sediment, and a range of hosts) combined with advances in the development and application of ultra-high throughput sequence methodologies are set to accelerate the pace at which new metagenomes are generated. Because the pace of genomic and metagenomic sequencing projects [1] is rapidly increasing, and will only accelerate as the application of ultrahigh-throughput methods becomes more wide spread, the role of standards is becoming ever more important to scientific progress and data sharing. This report summarizes the proceedings of the Metagenomics, Metadata and MetaAnalysis (M3) Special Interest Group at ISMB 2010. Special Interest Group (SIG) meetings at the ISMB are a special way to bring together computational researchers interested in a particular topic.

Objectives

Results

Conclusion