BOL: Related items

University of California, Irvine - Center for Complex Biological Systems

Mon, 04 Nov 2013 17:10:29 -0600

The University of California Irvine's Center for Complex Biological Systems got its start just as there was a revolution in biology. Systems Biology requires that scientists work across many disciplines including engineering, physics and mathematics. The Center specializes in helping form the kinds of teams that will propel biological research into the future. It is also proud to be able to train students in the new interdisciplinary approach. http://ccbs.uci.edu

HS3D: Homo Sapiens Splice Sites Dataset

Jit — Fri, 12 Jun 2020 12:33:17 -0500

HS3D (Homo Sapiens Splice Sites Dataset) is a data set of Homo Sapiens Exon, Intron and Splice regions extracted from GenBank Rel.123. The aim of this data set is to give standardized material to train and to assess the prediction accuracy of computational approaches for gene identification and characterization. From the complete GenBank (Primate Sequences Division) Rel.123 (162,557 entries), entries of Human Nuclear DNA including Complete CDS and more than one Exon have been selected, and 4523 exons and 3802 introns have been extracted from these entries. Details about extracted exons and introns are reported (Locus, number, Start and End position in the entry, sequence, length, G+C content, presence of not AGCT data (nucleotide scan check)). Statistics are also reported (overall nucleotides, average G+C content, nucleotide scan check results, number of not GT starting / AG ending introns, minimum / maximum / average length, length standard deviation) . 3799+3799 donor and acceptor sites, as windows of 140 nucleotides around each splice site have been extracted. After discarding sequences not including canonical GT–AG junctions (65+74), including insufficient data (not enough material for a 140 nucleotide window) (686+589), including not AGCT bases (29+30), and redundant (218+226) there are 2796+ 2880 windows.

1. P.Pollastro, S.Rampone (2002). HS3D, a Dataset of Homo Sapiens Splice Regions, and its Extraction Procedure from a Major Public Database , International Journal of Modern Physics C, 13(8), 1105-1117. (please cite this paper)

2. P.Pollastro, S.Rampone (2003). HS3D: Homo Sapiens Splice Site Data Set , Nucleic Acids Research, 2003 Annual Database Issue.

Address of the bookmark: http://www.sci.unisannio.it/docenti/rampone/

HiBC: Human Intestinal Bacteria Collection

BioStar — Wed, 07 May 2025 05:49:19 -0500

The human gut is home to trillions of microorganisms, forming one of the most complex and dynamic microbial ecosystems known to science. The Human Intestinal Bacteria Collection (HiBC) is a pioneering initiative aimed at cataloging, preserving, and studying the diverse bacterial species that inhabit the human gastrointestinal tract. This curated collection serves as a critical resource for researchers working on microbiome-related health, disease, and therapeutics.

What is HiBC?

The Human Intestinal Bacteria Collection (HiBC) is a comprehensive, high-quality reference repository of bacterial isolates derived from human fecal samples. It focuses on anaerobic and facultative anaerobic bacteria that play pivotal roles in digestion, immune modulation, vitamin synthesis, and pathogen resistance. The collection includes both culturable strains and genomic data from unculturable taxa, bridging the gap between culture-dependent and -independent microbiome studies.

Why is HiBC Important?

Understanding Microbiome-Host Interactions
HiBC enables deeper insight into the functions of specific bacterial taxa in the gut. With well-characterized isolates, researchers can conduct mechanistic studies to explore how certain bacteria influence metabolism, inflammation, or mental health.
Precision Probiotics and Therapeutics
By providing access to native human gut microbes, HiBC supports the development of next-generation probiotics, live biotherapeutic products (LBPs), and fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) alternatives.
Standardization and Reproducibility
With standardized cultivation and genomic protocols, HiBC ensures consistency across microbiome research studies, improving reproducibility and comparability of findings.
Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) Surveillance
HiBC includes metadata on antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs), helping track the spread of AMR in commensal gut bacteria and understanding its implications for human health.

Key Features of HiBC

Culturable Bacteria Repository: A living collection of anaerobic and facultative strains isolated from healthy and diseased individuals worldwide.
Metadata-rich Entries: Each isolate is annotated with host details (age, health status, diet), geographical origin, phenotypic traits, and antibiotic susceptibility profiles.
Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS): High-quality genome assemblies for most strains to support functional and comparative genomics.
Interactive Database Access: User-friendly search and filtering options for strain selection based on taxonomy, function, or clinical relevance.
Cross-linking with Other Databases: Integration with NCBI, GOLD, and Human Microbiome Project (HMP) data for broader context and validation.

Applications of HiBC

Microbiome-based diagnostics and biomarker discovery
Host-microbe interaction studies in gnotobiotic mouse models
Gut microbiome modulation through diet, drugs, or engineered bacteria
Longitudinal studies of gut flora across age, geography, and lifestyle
Environmental and evolutionary microbiology of human-associated bacteria

Accessing HiBC

Researchers and interested parties can explore the HiBC database through its official website: https://www.hibc.rwth-aachen.de/. The platform offers comprehensive information on bacterial isolates, including taxonomy, cultivation conditions, and genomic data, facilitating advanced research in human gut microbiome studies.

Final Thoughts

The HiBC is a cornerstone resource in the rapidly evolving field of microbiome research. As science moves toward personalized medicine and microbial therapeutics, having a reliable and diverse collection of human gut bacteria is not just useful — it's essential. Whether you're a microbiologist, clinician, computational biologist, or biotechnologist, HiBC offers tools to accelerate discovery and innovation in gut microbiome science.

Public Databases for Bioinformatics !

Jit — Tue, 23 Mar 2021 05:32:15 -0500

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-17155-y

Server Infrastructure:

File Server:

dhara: Synology 3614 Storage Appliance
4 Core Xeon
108TB disk storage
10Gb ethernet to SCG3
Access atx: dhara:5000
Has btsync server (try it - its much better than dropbox)

Compute Servers:

nandi: Kundaje and Phi Server
24 intel cores
256GB RAM
500GB of SSD storage 
36TB RAID6 local storage
4 Intel Phi's (space for 4 more GPU's)


durga: Montgomery and sensitive data
24 intel cores
256GB RAM
500GB of SSD RAID0 storage 
60TB RAID6 local storage

mitra: Bassik and Web/DB Server
24 core
256GB RAM 
500GB of SSD RAID0 storage 
36TB RAID6 local storage

vayu: Kundaje GPU server
4 core
64GB RAM 
200GB of SSD storage 
8TB RAID10 local storage
4 Nvidia GTX 970 4GB GPUs

amold: Bickel and SGE server
32 AMD core
128GB RAM 
200GB of SSD storage 
12TB RAID5 local storage

wotan: Bickel and SGE server
64 AMD core
256GB RAM 
200GB of SSD storage 
12TB RAID5 local storage

Filesystem:

/users/$USER
default home directory
full backups nightly 
nfs mount to dhara
should store code, papers, and other highly processed data here

/mnt/data/
globally accessible data
should store common data here
e.g. genomes and indexes, annotations, ENCODE data  
if you dont want this to count towards your quote you must chown

/mnt/lab_data/$LAB/
lab accessible data
should store lab project data here 
e.g. ATAC-seq prediction data, enhancer prediction, motif calls

/srv/scratch/$USER
fast local storage
not backed up, but on raid and data will never be deleted
most analysis should be performed here

/srv/persistent/$USER
fast local storage
synced nightly, but not backed up
       ie if the hard drives fail or you delete something and notice 
       within 24 hours we can recover. Otherwise not. (vs home which is 
       properly backed up )  
intermediate analysis products that would be hard to recover should be stored here 
       e.g. stochastic analysis results that need to be kept so that paper 
       results can be reproduced

/srv/www/$LABNAME/
web accessible from mitra.stanford.edu
*NOT BACKED UP*

Some parallel programming patterns:

# gzip a bunch of files
parallel gzip -- *.FILESTOGZIP

# fork example in python:
(for more detailed examples look at 
 https://github.com/nboley/grit/ grit/lib/multiprocessing_utils.py)

import os
import time
import random

import multiprocessing

class ProcessSafeOPStream( object ):
    def __init__( self, writeable_obj ):
        self.writeable_obj = writeable_obj
        self.lock = multiprocessing.Lock()
        self.name = self.writeable_obj.name
        return
    
    def write( self, data ):
        self.lock.acquire()
        self.writeable_obj.write( data )
        self.writeable_obj.flush()
        self.lock.release()
        return
    
    def close( self ):
        self.writeable_obj.close()

def worker(queue, ofp):
    # Try without this
    random.seed()
    while True:
        i = queue.get()
        if i == 'FINISHED': return
        # simulate an expensive function
        x = random.random()
        time.sleep(x/10)
        print i, x
        ofp.write("%i\t%s\n" % (i, x))

NSIMS = 10000
NPROC = 25

# populate queue
todo = multiprocessing.Queue()
for i in xrange(NSIMS): todo.put(i)
for i in xrange(NPROC): todo.put('FINISHED')

ofp = ProcessSafeOPStream( open("output.txt", "w") )

pids = []
for i in xrange(NPROC):
    pid = os.fork()
    if pid == 0:
       worker(todo, ofp)
       os._exit(0)
    else:
       pids.append(pid)  

for pid in pids:
    os.waitpid(pid, 0)

ofp.close()

print "FINISHED"

For use case 1 we obtained the following ENCODE and ROADMAP datasets https://www.encodeproject.org/files/ENCFF446WOD/@@download/ENCFF446WOD.bed.gz, https://www.encodeproject.org/files/ENCFF546PJU/@@download/ENCFF546PJU.bam, https://www.encodeproject.org/files/ENCFF059BEU/@@download/ENCFF059BEU.bam. Blacklisted regions were obtained from http://mitra.stanford.edu/kundaje/akundaje/release/blacklists/hg38-human/hg38.blacklist.bed.gz. The human genome version hg38 was obtained from http://hgdownload.cse.ucsc.edu/goldenPath/hg38/bigZips/hg38.fa.gz.

For use case 2 we used the set of narrowPeak files summarized in https://github.com/wkopp/janggu_usecases/tree/master/extra/urls.txt (archived version v1.0.1). The human genome version hg19 was obtained from http://hgdownload.cse.ucsc.edu/goldenPath/hg19/bigZips/hg19.fa.gz

For use case 3 we used the ENCODE datasets https://www.encodeproject.org/files/ENCFF591XCX/@@download/ENCFF591XCX.bam, https://www.encodeproject.org/files/ENCFF736LHE/@@download/ENCFF736LHE.bigWig, https://www.encodeproject.org/files/ENCFF177HHM/@@download/ENCFF177HHM.bam as we as the GENCODE annotation v29 from ftp://ftp.ebi.ac.uk/pub/databases/gencode/Gencode_human/release_29/gencode.v29.annotation.gtf.gz.

Address of the bookmark: http://mitra.stanford.edu/

chromoMap-An R package for Interactive visualization and mapping of human chromosomes

Rahul Nayak — Mon, 25 Jun 2018 17:22:24 -0500

chromoMap is an R package that provides interactive, configurable and elegant graphics visualization of the human chromosomes allowing users to map chromosome elements (like genes, SNPs etc.) on the chromosome plot. It introduces a special plot viz. the "chromosome heatmap" that, in addition to mapping elements, can visualize the data associated with chromosome elements (like gene expression) in the form of heat colors which can be highly advantageous in the scientific interpretations and research work. Because of the enormous size of the chromosomes, it is impractical to visualize each element on the same plot. But chromoMap plots provide a magnified view for each of chromosome location to render additional information and visualization specific for that location. You can map thousands of genes and can view all mappings easily. Users can investigate the detailed information about the mappings (like gene names or total genes mapped on a location) or can view the magnified single or double stranded view of the chromosome at a location showing each mapped element in sequential order (You will see in the demos below). Not ony that, the plots can be saved as HTML documents that can be customized and shared easily. In addition, you can include them in R Markdown or in R Shiny applications.

https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/chromoMap/index.html

PLAR: Pipeline for lncRNA annotation from RNA-seq data

Abhi — Fri, 07 Jan 2022 06:18:01 -0600

Due to several requests, we are releasing an assingment of orthologs, determined using the same methods used in Hezroni et al. (BLAST, Whole Genome Alignment (WGA), and synteny). One is comparing human GENCODE genes (from GENCODE v30) to lncRNAs from other species identified by PLAR. Available here.

Species	Assembly	Code	Transcriptome	lncRNAs	Protein-coding
Human	hg19	hg19	Download	Download	Download
Rhesus	rheMac3	rm3	Download	Download	Download
Marmoset	calJac3	cj3	Download	Download	Download
Mouse	mm9	mm9	Download	Download	Download
Rabbit	oryCun2	oc2	Download	Download	Download
Dog	canFam3	cf3	Download	Download	Download
Ferret	musFur1	oa3	Download	Download	Download
Opossum	monDom5	md5	Download	Download	Download
Chicken	galGal4	gg4	Download	Download	Download
Lizard	anoCar2	ac2	Download	Download	Download
Coelacanth	latCha1	lc1	Download	Download	Download
Zebrafish	danRer7	dr7	Download	Download	Download
Stickleback	gasAcu1	ga1	Download	Download	Download
Nile tilapia	oreNil2	ot2	Download	Download	Download
Spotted gar	lepOcu1	lo1	Download	Download	Download
Elephant shark	calMil1	cm1	Download	Download	Download
Sea urchin	strPur4	sp4	Download	Download	Download

Address of the bookmark: http://www.weizmann.ac.il/Biological_Regulation/IgorUlitsky/PLAR

Ragan Lab

Sun, 14 Jul 2013 12:03:43 -0500

Computational systems biology

Research Area:
breast cancer; pancreatic cancer; prostate cancer; gastrointestinal disorders; urohaemolytic disorders; staphylococcal diseases

Ron Milo Lab

Fri, 23 Aug 2013 03:22:37 -0500

This research group brings the tools of systems biology to bear on the grand challenges of sustainability. The lab members and I are passionate about trying to understand the cellular highways of energy and carbon transformations known as central carbon metabolism in quantitative terms. They employ a combination of computational and experimental synthetic biology tools.
Ron Milo Lab research efforts are the culmination of three directions:
(1) Understanding the structure and logic of central carbon and energy metabolism in quantitative terms
(2) Synthetic metabolic pathways for carbon fixation
(3) Novel tools facilitating accurate, accessible and collaborative quantitative cell biology

http://www.weizmann.ac.il/plants/Milo/index.php

Landry Lab

Thu, 17 Jul 2014 14:33:57 -0500

EVOLUTIONARY AND INTEGRATIVE CELL BIOLOGY

Our research is at the crossroad between cell biology, ecological genomics, systems biology, molecular evolution and population genetics. We study the architecture and evolution of protein and signalling networks.

More at http://landrylab.ibis.ulaval.ca/

Postdoctoral Researcher in Cancer Systems Biology

Mon, 12 Jan 2015 01:44:11 -0600

Postdoctoral Researcher in Cancer Systems Biology
Department of Oncology, Old Road Campus Research Building, Roosevelt Drive, Oxford
Grade 7: £30,434 - £37,394 with a discretionary range to £40,847 p.a.
Applications are invited for a Postdoctoral Researcher in Cancer Systems Biology to join a rapidly developing Bioinformatics Research Core group headed by Dr Anastasia Samsonova. The purpose of the role is to develop and deliver integrative approaches to dissect the complexity of cancer as a genomic disease. The research will focus on development and application of effective strategies for mining and integration of complex human *omics datasets and clinical/phenotypic data in cancer studies.

The role sits at the critical interface between genetics and cancer systems biology, and would suit a candidate who is interested in developing a career at the confluence of Statistics/Data Mining/Machine Learning and Biology. Ideally, you will have experience in development of analytical approaches to high-throughput and multivariate data mining and integration gained through a PhD (or equivalent) in a quantitative subject (eg mathematics, statistics, physics, engineering or computer science).

Experience of statistics and/or machine learning techniques is highly desirable as is evidence of prior experience of developing bioinformatics software and/or analysing complex *omics data sets. You will be able to work as part of a team and independently and deliver results to the required standard and schedule. You should be able to organise and prioritise your own work, as well as have excellent communication skills, both written and oral. The post will involve interactions with collaborators from such diverse fields as applied mathematics, statistics, computer science and medicine.

This is a full-time post, fixed-term until 31 March 2017. For informal enquiries, contact Dr Anastasia Samsonova (bioinformatics@oncology.ox.ac.uk).

All applicants must complete a short application form and upload a CV and supporting statement.

The closing date for applications is 12.00 noon on 26 January 2015.

More at https://www.recruit.ox.ac.uk/pls/hrisliverecruit/erq_jobspec_version_4.display_form