Welcome to phylobabble.org, a discussion forum for phylogenetic theory and applications. The primary goal of this forum is to discuss best practice and new developments in phylogenetics. Although we do have a Troubleshooting category for getting feedback on analyses, this is not a help site for running phylogenetics programs.

A great place to chat about phylogenetics for researchers and the broader community of students and science-interested citizens. 

Address of the bookmark: http://phylobabble.org/

The pipeline is built using Nextflow, a workflow tool to run tasks across multiple compute infrastructures in a very portable manner. It uses Docker/Singularity containers making installation trivial and results highly reproducible. The Nextflow DSL2 implementation of this pipeline uses one container per process which makes it much easier to maintain and update software dependencies.

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/AusARG/pipesnake

Like other indel callers, Scalpel works by performing de novo assembly of regions of interest, so that misalignment to the reference genome cannot obscure the presence of an insertion or deletion. Scalpel's innovation is to repeatedly check its assembly before comparing to the reference genome, to account for simple sequence repeats that are a regular source of error in indel calling. When Scalpel assembles an exon, it collects reads that map to that exon (including partial matches), splits them into k-mers, and creates a de Bruijn graph to span the exon; however, if it detects repeats in the map, it iteratively increases the size of the k-mers by one base until the repeats are eliminated. This ensures that the final assembly of the exon is highly accurate while minimizing compute time.

The Cold Spring Harbor team's validation of Scalpel, published over the weekend in Nature Methods, compares Scalpel's performance on a live whole exome against HaplotypeCaller and SOAPindel. The donor is an individual with serious neurological disorders, which may be linked to a high incidence of indels. One thousand indels from this individual's exome, called by one or more of the informatics pipelines, were selected for focused resequencing. This resequencing revealed a 77% true positive rate for Scalpel calls, dramatically better than the rates for either of the competing tools; Scalpel performed especially well with indels longer than five base pairs, a traditional weak point for indel callers.

Finally, the authors demonstrate Scalpel's use on a large set of genetic data from nearly 600 families who donated samples to the Simons Simplex Collection, a project of the Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative. Scalpel found a very high enrichment for indels in children affected by autism, compared with their unaffected siblings, a pattern that persisted even after excluding common variants.

Why Bioinformatics Matters More Than Ever

Every day, our world generates massive amounts of biological data—from genome sequences to microbiome profiles to real-time pathogen surveillance. Hidden within these datasets are the answers to some of the greatest challenges humanity faces: emerging diseases, antimicrobial resistance, environmental stress, genetic disorders, sustainable agriculture, and more.

Bioinformatics isn’t just a skill.
It’s the language of the future of biology.

By mastering it, you give yourself the power to:

Decode genomes and understand life at its most fundamental level

Identify patterns no microscope could ever reveal

Predict disease outbreaks before they occur

Accelerate drug discovery with computational precision

Contribute to open-source tools that empower scientists worldwide

You don’t just follow science—you drive it.

Every Expert Was Once a Beginner

Many newcomers feel intimidated. Command-line interfaces. R scripts. Python packages. Next-generation sequencing data. Complex machine learning models.

But here’s the truth: every bioinformatician started exactly where you are now—curious, unsure, but excited.

No one writes perfect code on day one.

No one understands genomics pipelines immediately.

What makes you a bioinformatician is not perfection, but perseverance.

When your script throws a cryptic error…
When your data refuses to format…
When your pipeline runs for 6 hours only to crash…

Remember: this is part of the journey.
Every error teaches you. Every retry strengthens you. Every breakthrough energizes you.

Bioinformatics Is Not Just a Career—It’s a Mindset

It’s the mindset of:

Problem-solving.

Continuous learning.

Turning chaos into clarity.

Seeing what others can’t.

Bioinformaticians are detectives of biological complexity. You sit at the intersection of innovation, using tools that can shape public health, medicine, agriculture, and ecology. Few fields give you such direct impact on the world.

Your Contribution Matters

As you work on your script, pipeline, genome, or model, remember:

Somewhere, your analysis might contribute to:

A new therapy

A faster diagnostic test

A better understanding of a pathogen

A more resilient crop

An open-source dataset that helps thousands

A discovery that rewrites textbooks

Your code may be small, but its ripple effect is powerful.

The Future Is Bioinformatics—And You Are Part of It

The world is shifting. Wet labs are integrating AI. Hospitals rely on genomic insights. Farmers use gene-level predictions. Governments monitor disease in real time. Students launch pipelines that become global tools.

This is a golden era—and you are not late.
You are exactly where you need to be.

Keep Pushing. Keep Learning. Keep Discovering.

Bioinformatics is a journey filled with challenges, but also with unmatched rewards.

So the next time you feel stuck, frustrated, or overwhelmed, remember:
You’re building the science of tomorrow.

Be proud. Stay curious. Keep going.
Your work matters more than you think.

Algorithms scripts @ https://github.com/jschendel/bioinformatics-algorithms-coursera

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/jorvis/biocode

WALK IN INTERVIEW

A walk-in Interview for the following position tenable at the Bioinformatics Infrastructure Facility (BIF), Department of Biotechnology, Alagappa University will be held at the Department of Biotechnology, Alagappa University, Karaikudi 630 003 on 15.05.2014 (Thursday) at 01:00 PM. This national facility is funded by the Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India, New Delhi. The main objectives of the Centre involve teaching and research activities in bioinformatics/biotechnology.

RA (One Post):

Salary : Rs. 11000 p.m. plus admissible HRA

Qualification: M.Sc., in Bioinformatics/Biotechnology/Biophysics/Biochemistry/ Life Sciences

Interested candidates are encouraged to send their Curriculum Vitae by email to “sk_pandian@rediffmail.com” in advance. On the day of interview, the candidates must produce original certificates in proof of their educational qualification and experience and a recommendation letter from the Head of the Department/Institution where last studied/worked. Candidates who have already passed the required Degree alone are eligible to appear for interview. No TA&DA will be given for attending the interview.

Advertisement: http://www.alagappabiotech.org/Walk%20in%20interview.pdf

Pay scale: Pay Band of Rs. 37400-67000 with AGP of Rs. 9000.

i. Educational Qualification: Good academic record with a Ph.D. Degree in the concerned/allied/relevant disciplines.

ii. A Master's Degree with at least 55% marks (or an equivalent grade in a point scale wherever grading system is followed).

iii. A minimum of eight years of experience of teaching and/or research in an academic/research position equivalent to that of Assistant Professor in a University, College or Accredited Research Institution/industry excluding the period of Ph.D. research with evidence of published work and a minimum of 5 publications as books and/or research/policy papers.

iv. Contribution to educational innovation, design of new curricula and courses, and technology - mediated teaching learning process with evidence of having guided doctoral candidates and research students.

v. A minimum score as stipulated in the Academic Performance Indicator (API) based Performance Based Appraisal System (PBAS), set out in UGC Regulation.

Download application form from website: http://www.allduniv.ac.in/

Send your application to the Registrar, University of Allahabad, Allahabad-211002 (U.P.) on or before 30th April 2014

For more details: http://www.allduniv.ac.in/images/adv/backlog/advt-details.pdf OR http://www.allduniv.ac.in/images/news/extension-notice.pdf

Last Apply Date: 30 May 2014

1. Cancer Genomics

2. Microbial Genetics and Metagenomics

3. Human Infective Diseases

4. Computational Drug Design

Interested candidates may apply to Dr. Ranjith N. Kumavath, Assistant Professor & Head, Department of Genomic Science, School of Biological Sciences, Central University of Kerala, Padannakad (PO), Nileshwar, Kasaragod-671328,Kerala. Email: RNkumavath@gmail.com

The tutorial is divided in three main parts:

• In the Sequence part, you will see how to look efficiently for a particular protein sequence, how to blast it against the database of your choice to find homologues, how to perform a multiple alignment of the homologues you've selected and how to edit this alignment.
• The Structure part is about molecular visualization, homology modeling and structural domain prediction.
• In the Function part, you will be introduced to you 3 useful servers to investigate the function of a protein. i.e. finding interactors, co-expressed genes, see a phylogenetic profile, easily access papers citing your gene etc ...

During all the three parts, we will use the S. cerevisiae VPS36 protein as an example.

Address of the bookmark: http://www.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk/rlw/text/bioinfo_tuto/introduction.html