Scientist and entrepreneur Morten Sommer will talk about how bacteria and microbes form an integral part of the human body and play a significant role in controlling human health and well About TEDx, x = independently organized event: In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)

You have a PhD in Computational Science, Bioinformatics, or equivalent, and expertise in analysis and modeling of human RNA-seq data, statistics, data mining and machine learning. Excellent communication skills in English (written and oral) is a must. Flexibility and willingness to work across multiple projects and technologies in a rapidly evolving scientific context is required.
Salary will depend on qualification and experience. Starting date: immediate.

Interested candidates should send to farina.cinthia@hsr.it:

1. CV (please show evidences of relevant titles, projects, courses, references, etc.)
2. One page with a list of research topics (i.e. ongoing projects)
3. earliest availability

4. 2-3 contact names

YASRA uses LASTZ (http://bx.psu.edu/miller_lab for released version and http://www.bx.psu.edu/~rsharris/lastz/newer for newer version) for aligning the sequences to the reference genome. Please install LASTZ (the newest version on http://www.bx.psu.edu/~rsharris/lastz/newer) and add the LASTZ binary in your executable/binary search path before installing YASRA.

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/aakrosh/YASRA

Address of the bookmark: https://www.kegg.jp/blastkoala/

Applications are invited for:

Junior Research Fellow, in a DBT funded project, is available in Translational Health Group, ICGEB, New Delhi

Qualifications:

Education: M.Sc. (preferably in Biotechnology, Life Sciences or Zoology, Chemistry, Bioinformatics). Candidates with hands on experience on GC-MS data acquisition and analysis will be given preference. Bioinformatics expertise required.

Fellowship: As per DBT guidelines.

Tenure: The position is purely on temporary basis with an initial tenure of six months and based on satisfactory performance may continue until the completion of the project.

Closing date for applications: 04/03/2017

Please send a "TWO PAGE" CV by email to: th.icgeb@gmail.com on or before the last date.

Research Associate, in a DBT funded project, is available in Translational Health Group, ICGEB, New Delhi

Qualifications:

Education: Ph.D. (in Biology, Biotechnology, Chemistry, Bioinformatics). Candidates with hands on experience on GC-MS data acquisition and analysis will be given preference.

Fellowship: As per DBT guidelines.

Tenure: The position is purely on temporary basis with an initial tenure of six months and based on satisfactory performance may continue until the completion of the project.

Closing date for applications: 04/03/2017

Please send a "TWO PAGE" CV by email to: th.icgeb@gmail.com on or before the last date.

Before you go down that path, consider this critical biological question:
Are you sequencing human cells—or bacterial contamination?

The Silent Saboteur: Mycoplasma in Cell Cultures

Mycoplasma contamination remains one of the most widespread and underdiagnosed issues in tissue culture work. Studies suggest that 15–35% of cell lines in use may be contaminated, often without visible signs. Unlike other microbial infections, Mycoplasma does not produce cloudiness, odor, or a change in pH. Many researchers won’t detect it unless they specifically test for it.

The consequences, however, are profound. Mycoplasma can significantly alter:

• Host gene expression patterns

• Cell proliferation rates

• Epigenetic profiles and chromatin accessibility

• Cytokine signaling and immune responses

In short, it can skew your results, compromise your biological conclusions, and invalidate weeks or months of research.

A Simple Diagnostic Step: Map Against Mycoplasma Genomes

If you encounter poor alignment rates to the human genome, consider mapping your reads to a Mycoplasma reference genome—or better yet, use a combined human + Mycoplasma reference. There have been cases where over half of all reads, initially assumed to be from human cells, were in fact bacterial in origin. This check is fast, easy, and could save your project.

How Contamination Happens—and Persists

Mycoplasma is small (0.1–0.3 μm), lacks a cell wall, and can pass through standard filters undetected. Common sources include:

• Contaminated reagents (e.g., FBS)

• Infected cell lines obtained from other labs

• Poor aseptic technique or shared equipment

Once present, it spreads quickly between cultures and can persist for months, silently affecting results.

Why Treatment Is Difficult

While antibiotics such as Plasmocin or BM-Cyclin are sometimes used, they often offer only partial resolution and may themselves alter cell behavior. In many cases, the best course of action is to discard the contaminated culture and start with a fresh, verified stock.

Practical Recommendations for Researchers

• Routinely test for Mycoplasma using PCR, qPCR, or fluorescence-based assays

• Incorporate contamination screens into your sequencing QC pipeline

• Use combined reference genomes when mapping ambiguous reads

• Practice strict aseptic technique and monitor all incoming cell lines

• Don’t ignore unexplained data anomalies—they might point to contamination

Closing Thought: Contamination Is a Biological Variable

It’s easy to view poor mapping as a technical issue, but sometimes the problem lies deeper—in the biology itself. Mycoplasma contamination doesn’t just interfere with sequencing; it interferes with science. As a research community, we must treat contamination not as an afterthought, but as a key variable to control.

So next time your reads won’t align, don’t just tune the aligner. Ask if your cells are telling the truth—or if they're hiding something.

Grouping large genomic fragments assembled from shotgun metagenomic sequences to deconvolute complex microbial communities, or metagenome binning, enables the study of individual organisms and their interactions. Here we developed an automated metagenome binning software, called MetaBAT, which integrates empirical probabilistic distances of genome abundance and tetranucleotide frequency. Tested on both synthetic and real metagenome datasets, MetaBAT outperforms alternative methods in both accuracy and computational efficiency. Applying MetaBAT to an assembly from 1,704 human gut samples formed 1,634 genome bins (>200kb) in 3 hours, where 621 genome bins are >50% complete with <5% contamination from other species. Further analysis shows that the quality of these genome bins approaches manually curated genomes.

Address of the bookmark: https://bitbucket.org/berkeleylab/metabat

https://fhs.mcmaster.ca/gupta-lab/index.html

Address of the bookmark: http://ritchielab.psu.edu/software/phenogram-downloads