Dear Reader,
With our eleventh NFDI4Microbiota newsletter, we would like to share news about conferences, training courses, services and cooperations. If you can think of other topics that we should cover, please let us know. We are happy to hear from you!
And now: Enjoy reading the newsletter!
Community Engagement
Events and Conferences
NFDI4Microbiota Symposium and booth that the VAAM
From 23–26 March, NFDI4Microbiota was present at the VAAM Annual Conference in Bochum with a booth, a poster, and a dedicated symposium. Visitors to our booth and poster learned how our services support microbiologists with FAIR data workflows, strain information, metadata standards, and Electronic Lab Notebooks. On Monday, 24 March, our symposium “From Lab to Publication: NFDI4Microbiota services for research data management” brought together our experts from DSMZ, HZI, UFZ, and ZB MED to present practical tools for better research data management. Thanks to everyone who stopped by and joined the discussion!
NFDI4Microbiota at the DFG Interim Symposium in Bonn
NFDI4Microbiota reached an important milestone this February by presenting its three-year progress at the NFDI Interim Symposium 2025. As one of the second-round NFDI consortia, we had the opportunity to showcase our contributions to the DFG reviewers and the broader NFDI community.Our presentation highlighted advances in data standardization, integration of microbiome datasets, and the development of tools and services that support FAIR data practices across microbiology. We were pleased to receive very positive feedback on our work so far, particularly on our collaborative approach and the scientific relevance of our services. A big thanks to our partners across the NFDI network and look forward to continuing this joint effort to build a sustainable Open Science infrastructure for microbiome research.
NFDI4Microbiota at the 34th Annual Meeting of the Society for Virology
From 4–7 March, NFDI4Microbiota was present at the 34th Annual Meeting of the Society for Virology (GVF 2025) in Hamburg with a booth highlighting our services for virology and microbial genomics. We showcased the VirJEN database—our curated platform for virus sequence metadata and standards. A big thank-you to everyone who visited, asked questions, and shared insights. We’re excited to keep building better infrastructures for virology research together!
Upcoming Events and Conferences
From Data to Discovery: Use Case Conference in May
Mark your calendars! The NFDI4Microbiota Use Case Conference “From Data to Discovery: Unlocking the Potential of Host-Associated Microbiomes” will take place on 19–20 May 2025 in Siegburg/Bonn, Germany. This two-day event brings together microbiologists, bioinformaticians, and data curators to explore practical approaches for making microbiome data FAIR and reusable. Kicking off with a keynote by Prof. Dr. John Penders, the program highlights real-world Use Cases and services—from metaproteomics workflows and microbial knowledge graphs to bioimage annotation and virus metadata standards.The conference is free of charge, and registration is now open until 17 April. Join us to exchange ideas, get inspired, and help shape the future of microbiome research.
We need your Feedback! Join the Community Workshop
NFDI4Microbiota is excited to announce the 7th edition of its Community Workshop on 15 May 2025 from 1:00 to 3:00 pm CEST. Since its successful launch in October 2021, the consortium has seen a rapid expansion in its technical solutions and trainings for the microbiology community. Now, after three years and seven months of dedicated work, the entire NFDI4Microbiota team invites you to join them in reflecting on past successes and shaping the future of microbiome research. Join online and share the invitation with your colleagues! More info will soon bee announced here.
See you in person!
Join the ambassador meetings
As part of our commitment, we aim to assist young scientists in expanding their research networks and disseminating knowledge on data handling, metadata standards, standardized bioinformatic workflows and further related topics. Join us in our ambassador program for networking and spreading FAIR principles and openness in microbiome research!
For our Ambassadors, we host bimonthly ambassador meetings with interesting topics. The next meeting will be announced soon! Get your updates and more information on the program here.
Take a break and join our Coffee Talks
Services
New update from StrainInfo
Ask your questions to our Helpdesk! support links
Training Announcements
Previous Training
Successful Carpentries Python Workshop
The Carpentries Python Workshop, held on March 17–18, 2025, at RWTH Aachen University’s IT Center, offered graduate students and researchers an engaging introduction to Python. Led by Jonathan Hartman and NFDI4Microbiota Data Steward Catherine Gonzalez, the event combined hands-on exercises with collaborative learning, emphasizing Python fundamentals from variables and loops to data manipulation with Pandas and visualizations using Matplotlib. Participants also explored broader topics such as Git version control and clean coding practices We also received encouraging feedback from participants:
“I learned a lot from this workshop. All the staff were very kind and professional. I’d love to join another Python workshop under your organization. Thanks!”
“Good organization, very well-structured content with understandable examples. I liked the combination of presentations and hands-on exercises.”
“All instructors were very engaged and enthusiastic. They provided great examples of how best practices help in day-to-day coding.”
The enthusiasm from the instructors made it easier to stay engaged in the tasks.”
The inclusive atmosphere, guided by the Carpentries code of conduct, ensured a supportive environment where learners not only built practical skills but also gained the confidence to apply them in their research and data analysis projects.
Recent Publications
Defining Bacterial Genera with Genomic Precision fix link
How can we robustly define bacterial genera in the age of big genomic data? A new preprint by Charlie Pauvert, Thomas Hitch, and Tom Clavel from University Hospital of RWTH Aachen revisits the Percentage Of Conserved Proteins (POCP) and proposes POCPu—a clearer, more scalable method for genus delineation based on unique protein matches. Read more here https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.03.17.643616
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Social Links and Contact
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