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Grand challenges in bioinformatics education and training

Nature Biotechnology volume 41, pages 1171–1174 (2023)Cite this article

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With the increasing need for bioinformatics expertise in the life sciences, a coordinated effort is needed to proactively and critically reflect on the challenges of educating and training life scientists with the necessary skills and competencies.

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Fig. 1: Grand Challenges in bioinformatics education and training.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the following individuals for their critical review of the manuscript: F. Ouellette, H. Nakamura, J. Williams, M. Arita, S. Ranganathan and T. Attwood. We thank C. Brooksbank, E. Korpelainen, G. Yadav and W. K. Yam for their support of the work described herein. This work is dedicated to the late Christian Schönbach, an author of this work, who passed away in April 2023. His input to this work is much appreciated. His contributions to science and the broader community, especially in the areas of bioinformatics and computational biology, are immense, and he will be missed.

Author information

Author notes

  1. Asif M. Khan

    Present address: College of Computing and Information Technology, University of Doha for Science and Technology, Doha, Qatar

  2. These authors contributed equally: Esra Büşra Işık, Michelle D. Brazas, Russell Schwartz.

  3. Deceased: Christian Schönbach.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Beykoz Institute of Life Sciences and Biotechnology, Bezmialem Vakif University, Istanbul, Turkey

    Esra Büşra Işık & Asif M. Khan

  2. APBioNET.org, Singapore, Singapore

    Esra Büşra Işık, Harpreet Singh, Hilyatuz Zahroh, Maurice Ling & Asif M. Khan

  3. Ontario Institute for Cancer Research, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    Michelle D. Brazas

  4. Bioinformatics.ca, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    Michelle D. Brazas

  5. Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

    Russell Schwartz

  6. School of Computer Science and Engineering, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

    Bruno Gaeta

  7. Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Patricia M. Palagi

  8. Dutch Techcentre for Life Sciences, Utrecht, the Netherlands

    Celia W. G. van Gelder

  9. Amrita School of Biotechnology, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Clappana, India

    Prashanth Suravajhala

  10. Bioclues.org, Hyderabad, India

    Prashanth Suravajhala & Harpreet Singh

  11. Department of Bioinformatics, Hans Raj Mahila Maha Vidyalaya, Jalandhar, India

    Harpreet Singh

  12. European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute, Hinxton, UK

    Sarah L. Morgan

  13. Genetics Research Centre, Universitas YARSI, Jakarta, Indonesia

    Hilyatuz Zahroh

  14. School of Applied Science, Temasek Polytechnic, Singapore, Singapore

    Maurice Ling

  15. Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine, University of Luxembourg, Belvaux, Luxembourg

    Venkata P. Satagopam

  16. International Society for Computational Biology, Leesburg, VA, USA

    Venkata P. Satagopam

  17. CSIRO Data61, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

    Annette McGrath

  18. Institute of Medical Science, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

    Kenta Nakai

  19. Department of Biochemistry, YLL School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore

    Tin Wee Tan

  20. National Supercomputing Centre, Singapore, Singapore

    Tin Wee Tan

  21. State Key Laboratory of Protein and Plant Gene Research, School of Life Sciences, Biomedical Pioneering Innovative Center and Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Genomics, Center for Bioinformatics, Peking University, Beijing, China

    Ge Gao

  22. Computational Biology Division, Department of Integrative Biomedical Sciences, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa

    Nicola Mulder

  23. Department of Biology, School of Sciences and Humanities, Nazarbayev University, Astana, Kazakhstan

    Christian Schönbach

  24. School of Landscape and Horticulture, Yunnan Agricultural University, Kunming, China

    Yun Zheng

  25. Cancer Research Center, Spanish National Research Council, University of Salamanca & Institute for Biomedical Research of Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain

    Javier De Las Rivas

  26. Centre for Bioinformatics, School of Data Sciences, Perdana University, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

    Asif M. Khan

Authors
  1. Esra Büşra Işık
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  2. Michelle D. Brazas
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  3. Russell Schwartz
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  4. Bruno Gaeta
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  5. Patricia M. Palagi
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  6. Celia W. G. van Gelder
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  7. Prashanth Suravajhala
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  8. Harpreet Singh
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  9. Sarah L. Morgan
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  10. Hilyatuz Zahroh
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  11. Maurice Ling
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  12. Venkata P. Satagopam
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  13. Annette McGrath
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  14. Kenta Nakai
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  15. Tin Wee Tan
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  16. Ge Gao
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  17. Nicola Mulder
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  18. Christian Schönbach
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  19. Yun Zheng
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  20. Javier De Las Rivas
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  21. Asif M. Khan
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Contributions

Conceptualization: M.D.B., R.S., B.G., P.M.P., C.W.G.v.G., P.S., H.S., S.L.M., H.Z., M.L., A.M., K.N., T.W.T., G.G., A.M.K. Writing — original draft preparation: E.B.I., M.D.B., R.S., B.G., P.M.P., C.W.G.v.G., P.S., H.S., S.L.M., H.Z., A.M.K. Writing — review and editing: E.B.I., M.D.B., R.S., B.G., P.M.P., C.W.G.v.G., P.S., H.S., S.L.M., H.Z., M.L., V.P.S., A.M., K.N., T.W.T., G.G., N.M., C.S., Y.Z., J.D.L.R., A.M.K. Project administration: E.B.I., M.D.B., R.S., A.M.K.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Asif M. Khan.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Işık, E.B., Brazas, M.D., Schwartz, R. et al. Grand challenges in bioinformatics education and training. Nat Biotechnol 41, 1171–1174 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-023-01891-9

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