You might learn a lot about that house—the rooms, the doors, the furniture—but you would miss the bigger story: the streets, the neighborhoods, and all the ways the city changes from one place to another.

Something similar happens when scientists study bacterial genomes one at a time.

Over the past decade, researchers have collected thousands of bacterial genomes. These genomes contain an enormous amount of information about how bacteria survive, adapt, and evolve. But comparing thousands of individual genomes can quickly become a computational maze.

That is where PANORAMA enters the story.

Developed by Jérôme Arnoux and colleagues, PANORAMA is a computational tool designed to explore bacterial pangenomes—the complete collection of genetic possibilities found across a species or group of related organisms. Instead of looking at every genome as an isolated object, the approach represents their shared and variable genetic features as a graph.

Think of this graph as a giant subway map.

Some stations appear on almost every route. These represent genes that are highly conserved. Other stations appear only on certain routes, representing genes that some bacteria possess while others do not. By looking at the entire network, scientists can begin to see not just *what genes exist*, but how they are organized and how biological systems are distributed across populations.

The researchers put PANORAMA to the test using 941 genomes of Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a bacterium important in human health. They used the tool to investigate biological systems, including bacterial defense mechanisms against viruses known as bacteriophages. They then expanded the analysis to more than 6,000 genomes from four Enterobacteriaceae species.

The result is more than a faster way to process data.

PANORAMA allows researchers to ask a bigger question: What can an entire microbial species do, genetically speaking?

By comparing pangenomes, the researchers could identify systems shared between species as well as distinctive features. They could also find recurring genomic locations where genetic material is inserted—clues that may reveal common evolutionary processes.

And this is perhaps the most exciting part of the story.

Every bacterial genome is like a page in a huge evolutionary book. Until recently, reading thousands of those pages together was difficult. PANORAMA provides a way to turn those pages into a map, allowing scientists to see patterns that might disappear when each genome is studied separately.

The study, published in PLOS Computational Biology in July 2026, presents PANORAMA as a foundation for large-scale comparative pangenomics. The software and accompanying analysis resources are openly available, giving other researchers the opportunity to explore microbial diversity themselves.

So the story is not really about one bacterium or one genome.

It is about changing the way we look at life.

Instead of asking, “What is inside this genome?”, scientists can increasingly ask, “What is the full genetic landscape of this species—and how did it become this way?”

And sometimes, when you stop looking at one house and finally see the whole city, the most interesting discoveries are hiding in the streets between them.

Read more at https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1013856

A recent study by Webster and Chapman introduces Buscogeny (https://github.com/Jwebster89/Buscogeny), an open-source bioinformatics pipeline designed to make this process easier. The tool uses BUSCO (Benchmarking Universal Single-Copy Orthologs), which identifies conserved genes that are expected to occur as single copies in particular groups of organisms. These genes act like evolutionary landmarks, allowing researchers to compare genomes and investigate their relationships.

Buscogeny brings several steps of phylogenomic analysis into one workflow. It identifies BUSCO genes, extracts and aligns their sequences, removes unreliable regions, combines information from multiple genes, and uses the resulting data to construct a phylogenetic tree. It also provides quality-control information, helping researchers identify genomes that may be too incomplete for reliable analysis.

The authors demonstrate the usefulness of Buscogeny with bacterial and fungal genomes, including Alternaria. This is particularly valuable because fungal genomes can vary greatly in quality and annotation. Ultimately, Buscogeny helps transform massive amounts of genomic data into an understandable evolutionary story. Each DNA sequence becomes a clue, each conserved gene becomes a landmark, and together these clues reveal a picture of how life is connected.

More at https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10123-025-00752-6?

https://www.readcube.com/articles/10.3390%2Fv9040072

Address of the bookmark: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28387730/

Address of the bookmark: http://master.bioconductor.org/packages/release/workflows/vignettes/rnaseqGene/inst/doc/rnaseqGene.html

CDSA is pleased to announce a 4 days hands-on training program on “Essentials of Statistics and Data Analysis using R” at ICGEB, Aruna Asaf Ali Road, New Delhi on December 1 – 4, 2015. This will involve developing and enhancing skills to understand basic principles of statistics for summarizing data and use of appropriate statistical tests as well as providing an understanding of data analysis using R. Didactic lectures with practical sessions will be delivered by experienced faculties from AIIMS and Novartis. Live classroom with power point presentations, case studies, mock exercise, practical sessions on R, group work with time for discussion and Q&A sessions are added advantages of this workshop.

Please contact gayatrivishwakarma.cdsa@thsti.res.in or vineetabaloni.cdsa@thsti.res.in for program and registration details.

Please nominate personage or register yourself on or before November 6, 2015 along with the electronic transfer of registration fee.

Staff Scientists

Specialization: Applicant should have a Ph.D. with excellent academic credentials along with the track record of scientific productivity evidenced by publications/patents/products in the frontier areas of Plant Biology such as, Computational Biology, Genome Analysis and Molecular Mapping, Molecular Mechanism of Abiotic Stress Responses, Nutritional Genomics, Plant Development and Architecture, Plant Immunity, Molecular Breeding, Transgenics for crop improvement and other emerging areas based on plant genomics.

Remuneration: The length of experience and scientific accomplishments/quality of scientific productivity record will be major factors in deciding the level of appointment as Staff Scientist as well as starting salary in the Pay Bands of Rs 15,600-39,100 (with grade pay of 5400), and Rs 37,400-67,000 (with grade pay of 8,700 and 8,900) plus usual allowances admissible to the Central Government employees. However, NIPGR reserves the right to select candidates in the lower grade against the foregoing posts depending upon the qualifications and experience of the candidate. Reservation of posts shall be as per Govt. of India norms. Five posts (SC-2, ST-1, OBC-2) in the Pay Band of Rs 15,600-39,100 with Grade Pay of Rs 5400, are reserved.

More at http://www.nipgr.res.in/careers/vacancies_latest.php#

Apply online at http://www.nipgr.res.in/nipgr_recu/nipgr_recu.php

Form http://www.nipgr.res.in/files/careers/Application_Performa_2015.doc

 http://metapred2cs.ibers.aber.ac.uk/

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/martinjvickers/MetaPred2CS

Project Title : "Structural and functional characterization of serine biosynthetic pathway enzymes from Entamoeba histolytica"

No. of Post : 01

Qualification : Ph.D in any computational biology / bioinformatics

Desirable : 1. Experience with docking, simulations and structural biology with proof of publications is preferred. 2. National Eligibility Test cleared [CSIR/UGC] candidate is preferred.

Salary : According to CSIR rules
How to apply

The application on plain paper indicating name, date of birth/age, address, essential/technical/professional qualifications. experience, list of publications should reach The Prof. S. Gourinath, Principal Investigator, [Project Director], School of Life Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi-110067, on or before 23rd May 2016.

More at http://www.jnu.ac.in/Career/currentjobs.htm

More at

https://www.isas.de/files/redaktion/jobs/2021/18.60.1_Postdoc_deNBI_06_21_AS.pdf

https://www.isas.de/en/news/062021-post-doctoral-position-scientist-mfd-in-bioinformatics

The main features are, it supports many standard file formats such as GFF, BED, GTF, FASTA, VCF, BAM and it can be integrated with other browsers or tools for analysis of genome.