ELIXIR-UK at ISMB/ECCB 2025: Sharing services, building partnerships, and growing UK impact
From 20-24 July 2025, the international bioinformatics and computational biology community gathered in Liverpool for the biannual ISMB/ECCB – and ELIXIR-UK was there with a visible and collaborative presence.
Across talks, posters, booth activities and thematic tracks, ELIXIR-UK members showcased how FAIR data practices, open tools and community-driven platforms are shaping the future of life science research.
Co-hosting the “Bioinformatics in the UK” track
ELIXIR-UK co-organised the “Bioinformatics in the UK” track on the second day, chaired by Carole Goble (ELIXIR-UK Joint Head of Node) and Janet Thornton. The track was sponsored by HDR UK, AstraZeneca UK, BioFAIR, UCB, ELIXIR-UK, AIBIO-UK and Astex Pharmaceuticals.
It spotlighted the role of national infrastructures, emerging tools and collaborative strategies that keep the UK at the forefront of life science bioinformatics.
“Co-chairing this track with Janet was a great privilege – the session reflected the strength, depth and diversity of the UK community, and I was especially glad to engage with so many diverse professionals from an entire spectrum of career stages”
Carole Goble, University of Manchester and ELIXIR-UK Joint Head of Node
UK talks and posters
ELIXIR-UK members were visible across several tracks of the conference: Bioinformatics Open Source Conference (BOSC), Structural Bioinformatics and Computational Biophysics (3DSIG), Bioinformatics of Knowledge Representations (BOKR), Variant Interpretation (VarI), Text Mining for the Life Sciences:
Whether presenting a poster or giving a talk, our members were present across the entire programme to showcase the work supported by ELIXIR or the services we endorse as vital for the life sciences research community, alongside other innovators in the UK outside our members’ network.
Talks and posters from our member organisations
TRE-FX platform for federated analytics of sensitive data in Trusted Research Environments
Tim Beck, University of Nottingham
Health data organisation and landscape across the UK and the COALESCE Study
Emily Jefferson, HDR UK & Angela Wood, University of Cambridge
AI‑enhanced knowledge mining with KnetMiner: A bioinformatics platform for crop gene discovery
Arne De Klerk, KnetMiner & Rothamsted Research
Lichen Cell Atlas: Tools for exploring photosymbiotic associations
Ellen Cameron, Earlham Institute
AI in Histopathology Explorer for comprehensive analysis of the evolving AI landscape in histopathology
Heba Sailem, King’s College London
Applications of Bioschemas in FAIR, AI and knowledge representation
Phil Reed, University of Manchester
TeSS: a federated, FAIR-aligned platform for distributed management and exchange of training resources
Phil Reed, University of Manchester
Working together to develop, promote and protect our data resources: Lessons learnt developing CATH and TED
Christine Orengo, UCL
Working together to develop, promote and protect our data resources: Lessons learnt developing CATH and TED
Steven Hill, University of Manchester, Cancer Research UK
Civic Data-Driven Innovation for Global Health and AI for All
Iain Buchan, University of Liverpool
SurvivEHR: A Primary Care Foundation Prediction Model for Multiple Long-Term Conditions
Charles Gadd, University of Oxford
RO-Crate: Capturing FAIR research outputs in bioinformatics and beyond
Phil Reed, University of Manchester
RDMkit: The Research Data Management Toolkit for Life Sciences
Munazah Andrabi, University of Manchester
Enhancing sustainability in workflow execution: Improving job caching and meta-scheduling in Galaxy
Nicola Soranzo, Earlham Institute
Virtual: hCNV2Beacon – a Galaxy workflow for integrated CNV detection and federated data sharing
Khaled Jumah, University of Bradford
Talks and posters from other UK organisations at the Bioinformatics in the UK Track
Pathogen Analysis System (PAS): A scalable genomic data processing framework integrated with the European Nucleotide Archive
David Yuan, EMBL-EBI
Multimodal generative machine learning for non-clinical safety evaluations in drug discovery and development
Arijit Patra, UCB
BioFAIR Pathfinders: Driving adoption of FAIR Solutions in UK Life Sciences
Tony Burdet, BioFAIR
A collaborative UK Trail and an engaging booth
For the first time, ELIXIR-UK partnered with AIBIO-UK, HDR UK and BioFAIR to create a UK Trail across the exhibition floor. Visitors were invited to collect stamps and discover what each booth had to offer, with over 200 attendees participating. This collaborative approach brought consistent traffic and fresh conversations across all four UK-led stands.
We took advantage of this attention to offer contributors and members from across our national Node to share materials and demos of the services and initiatives we endorse:
A standout moment came from our support of KnetMiner, which hosted a Q&A session at the booth.
“It was great to see real curiosity about the platform and hear from researchers across disciplines about how they’re thinking of using KnetMiner. It helped bring a lot of our efforts into the light, not just within plant science, but also in our more experimental spaces like human drug discovery.”
Arne De Klerk, KnetMiner & Rothamsted Research
Empowering the new generation
On the first day of the event, Carole Goble also joined the next generations coming into the annual conference as part of the Youth Bioinformatics Symposium, which gave an opportunity for middle and high school students to come together and learn more about the exciting fields of computational biology and bioinformatics. The inspiring words from our Joint Head of Node resonated with the young audience.
Looking ahead
ISMB/ECCB 2025 offered an exciting opportunity to spotlight UK services and connect with colleagues, peers and partners, both old and new. We were delighted to work with members from the University of Liverpool, such as Eva Caamano and Juhi Gupta, and we look forward to deeper collaboration in future calls and events.
“Our presence this year showed what we can do when UK research infrastructures and networks join forces – from the booth trail to the UK track, we had a shared story to tell about FAIR, open science and long-term investment in national services and talent.”
Neil Hall, Earlham Insitute, ELIXIR-UK Head of Node
Notes to editors
About ELIXIR-UK
ELIXIR-UK is part of the European ELIXIR infrastructure, which supports life science research and its translation to medicine, the environment, and society. By integrating national bioinformatics resources, ELIXIR-UK aims to provide a sustainable infrastructure for biological information, ensuring that data is effectively managed, analysed and shared across the scientific community.
For further details, reach out to us at contact@elixiruknode.org
