Category Archives: Blog

Conference season thoughts #3 – Hosting a conference

This is part 3 in a series of posts this summer conference season. It isn’t aimed at one particular LOC – I know how hard they all work – but intended as a general reflection. I’ve been to god-knows how … Continue reading

Posted in Science | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Conference thoughts #2: Chairs, earn your ticket!

There are good chairs and bad. Surprisingly (or not, this is academia, after all..) there’s little guidance. I’ve put together a list: Start as you mean to go on. Remind speakers to keep to time (see next point) and encourage questions … Continue reading

Posted in Science | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Conference thoughts #1: PIs, support your students!

Summer conference season is nearly over. This is the first of three posts, informed by some reflections about the nature of scientific conferences. Students often feel under a lot of pressure when giving their first public presentations. PIs, for whom a … Continue reading

Posted in Science | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Why Trump is right on defence spending… and wrong

It’s all over the press this week: Trump wants all NATO members to spend 4% of their GDP on defence – a doubling of the previously-agreed 2% target (which many countries don’t meet). To me this seems pretty wrong, for … Continue reading

Posted in Blog | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

I’m a programmer – and driverless cars scare the hell out of me

Tech-savvy developer types often ride bikes, and often instinctively back the idea of robot vehicles. After all, the subconscious asks, if I can code a computer to play a game, what’s so hard about getting it to move around a … Continue reading

Posted in Activism, Blog, Coding, Cycling | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Rapid, raw-read reference and identification (R4IDs): A flexible platform for rapid generic species ID using long-read sequencing technology.

Our paper on rapid identification of samples using partial, low-coverage, MinION-sequenced reference databases for ID (at the Kew Science Festival) is in preprint. See here on BiorXiv: doi: 10.1101/281048. In it, we show (with empirical data and simulation) that the … Continue reading

Posted in Journals, Manuscripts in preparation, Publications, Science | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Field-based, real-time metagenomics and phylogenomics for responsive pathogen detection: lessons from nanopore analyses of Acute Oak Decline (AOD) sites in the UK.

Talk presented at the UK-India Joint Bioinformatics Workshop, Pirbright Institute, 09 Feb 2018 Abstract: In a globalised world of increasing trade, novel threats to animal and plant health, as well as human diseases, can cross political and geographical borders spontaneously … Continue reading

Posted in Publications, Science, Talks | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Real-time phylogenomics or ‘Some interesting problems in genomic big data’

Talk given at a technology/informatics company, London, Feb 2018. An overview of contemporary advances and remaining problems in big-data biology, especially phylogenomics. Tweet this Digg Post to LinkedIn Slashdot Stumble This

Posted in Publications, Science, Talks | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Read all about it!

Dead excited to say our Nature Science Reports paper on field-based DNA extraction, sequencing (and a bit of analysis) has been picked up by the BBC World Service and The Times (UK) newspaper! You can read all about it here … Continue reading

Posted in Publications, Science | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Tent-seq: the paper (aka ‘field-based, real-time phylogenomics’)

Really proud to report that the first of our bona fide real-time phylogenomics papers is now out in Scientific Reports! In the paper we managed to show a number of things that are potentially really exciting, and I’ll get to … Continue reading

Posted in Science | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment