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Events

Upcoming events hosted by or involving Genetics Otago will be listed here. Please check back regularly for updates. A calendar of events that may be of interest to our members can be found at the bottom of this page and in the sidebar of other pages on this site, please note that this includes events hosted outside of Genetics Otago.

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GO Annual Symposium


Genetics Otago has partnered with the Australasian Epigenetics Alliance to bring the AEpiA Conference to NZ for the first time, held 1st – 5th December 2024. The GO Symposium will begin with a shared session with the AEpiA delegates on the morning of the 5th of December and will then continue in its regular format for the remainder of the day.

As usual, the Symposium will highlight the fantastic research being done by GO members from around the country through presentations, posters and awards.

Date: Thursday 5th December 2024
Time: 9:00 am – 5:00 pm
Venue: Hutton Theatre, Otago Museum (for those joining from Christchurch and Wellington – a venue will be confirmed soon).

Programme
A draft programme will be available here soon.

Registration
Registration for this event is now open via the button below.

Abstract submission is part of the registration process, all abstracts must be submitted by no later than 5:00 pm on the 14th of November. Registration will close at 12:00 noon on Wednesday 20th November. Please keep the link provided at the end of your registration to make changes to your responses up until the closing date.

Registration Fee
Due to budget constraints, we will be charging a $50 per person registration fee for all attendees to subsidise the costs associated with the Symposium. We have received confirmation that this registration fee can be paid from S accounts, and if you are in a position to make a donation on top of this fee, we would gladly receive it. However, we do not want the payment to be a barrier to attendance, so if you are not in a position to make a payment, please contact us go@otago.ac.nz.

Payment Methods
Payments from an S account (or other University account) can be journaled to Genetics Otago account PL.10.9277.12.R.LH.2541 via your finance associate. Please include the surname(s) of the registrants that the payment covers in the narration.

If you need to make payment using funds from outside the University this can be arranged via the Cashier’s Office. Please contact us for details (go@otago.ac.nz).

Register Now

Awards
The Annual Genetics Otago Awards including The Genetics Otago Award, Outstanding Mentor Awards, Student Supervisor Award, Publication Awards, Poster Awards and Science Communication Prize will be presented at the conclusion of the Symposium and nominations for these are now open.

Award nominations close at 12:00 noon on Wednesday 20th November (except for Poster and Science Communication Awards which are at 5 pm 14th of November) and should be submitted by email to go@otago.ac.nz.

Full details of the awards can be found here: Award Details.

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Calendar of Events

The below is a calendar of events hosted by GO as well as events hosted by others that may be of interest to our members. If you have an event you would like us to include please contact us here.


Feb
7
Wed
eResearch NZ 2024 conference @ Intercontinental Wellington.
Feb 7 – Feb 9 all-day

7-9 February 2024 | Wellington
eResearch NZ is the leading conference for the research community in Aotearoa, New Zealand. Each year, it brings people together to connect, converse, and share their latest ideas and innovations.

In 2024, we’ll be hosting the event in Wellington. Our strategic theme is He Moana Pukepuke e Ekengia e te Waka | Navigating an evolving eResearch landscape

Together with the research community, we’ll be showcasing new innovations, technology and research while helping each other navigate the challenges in our changing field.

eResearch NZ is a collaborative initiative organised by REANNZ, NeSI and Genomics Aotearoa with the support of the wider community.

Feb
14
Wed
Genomics Aotearoa Training: Introduction to the Command Line @ Online
Feb 14 @ 10:00 am – 4:00 pm
Introduction to the Command Line
This online workshop will be taught on Wednesday 14th of February, 2024 10:00am-4:00pm NZT and is for New Zealand researchers interested in learning to use the command line. The focus of this workshop is on working with the command line, also called The Shell.

Some of the topics covered in this workshop are:

  • An introduction to the Shell, including why this is such a powerful tool.
  • File navigation, how to navigate directories.
  • How to interact with files – copy or rename files in bulk. Automation reduces user error and saves time.
  • Redirection: passing information from one command to another to create useful chains of commands.
  • Writing scripts which can be executed to quickly and easily reproduce analyses.

This lesson assumes learner has no prior experience with the tools covered in the workshop.

Setup
This is a fully online, hands-on workshop. This workshop material will be run on the NeSI High Performance Computing (HPC) platforms – there is no need to install any software for this workshop. Instructions on how to access the NeSI HPC service will be sent out with the confirmation letter to registrants. The material for this workshop can be previewed here.

Participants must have their own laptops and plan to participate actively. You will require a working web browser.

Register for this workshop at Eventbrite.

If you have any questions about these workshops, including whether they are suitable for you, please contact tyler.mcinnes@otago.ac.nz.

Feb
28
Wed
Genomics Aotearoa Training: Introduction to R (online) @ Online
Feb 28 @ 10:00 am – 4:00 pm
Introduction to R (online)
This online workshop is delivered by Genomics Aotearoa and NeSI, and will be taught from 10:00am-4:00pm NZT on Wednesday the 28th of February, 2024. It is for New Zealand researchers interested in learning R. This workshop functions as a prerequisite for the RNA-seq Data Analysis workshop, and the material provides a basis for many workflows in R.

Some of the topics covered in the workshop are:

  • An introduction to R and RStudio.
  • R basics: The R language, reading data into R, storing data as objects.
  • R packages.
  • Publication-quality data presentation using ggplot2.
  • Knitr: keep track of workflow and produce easy-to-follow reports of your work.
  • Where to get more help when you are ready to do more.

We assume the learner has no prior experience with the tools covered in the workshop. However, learners are expected to have some familiarity with biological concepts.

Setup
This is a fully online, hands-on workshop. This workshop material will be run on the NeSI High Performance Computing (HPC) platforms – there is no need to install any software for this workshop. Instructions on how to access the NeSI HPC service will be sent out with the confirmation letter to registrants.

The material for this workshop can be previewed here.

Participants must have their own laptops and plan to participate actively. You will require a working web browser.

Register for this workshop at Eventbrite.

If you have any questions about these workshops, including whether they are suitable for you, please contact tyler.mcinnes@otago.ac.nz

Mar
6
Wed
Genomics Aotearoa Training: Long-Read Genome Assembly @ Online
Mar 6 @ 10:00 am – 4:00 pm
Long-Read Genome Assembly
This online workshop is delivered by Genomics Aotearoa and NeSI, and will be taught from 10:00am-4:00pm NZT on Wednesday the 6th of March, 2024. It is for New Zealand researchers interested in learning how to carry out genome assembly. This workshop will work through an entire assembly workflow, including data quality control, assembly, and assembly quality control.

This is an intermediate workshop, please check you meet the Prerequisites: Attendees must have introductory knowledge of Bash. We expect that you will either have completed our Introduction to bash workshop or have sufficient experience of your own.

Some of the topics covered in the workshop are:

  • Sequence data basics: HiFi and UltraLong read data specifics
  • Quality Control (QC) of the data: cleaning, read length filtering. Overview of phasing.
  • Assembly of a genome: Verkko and Hifiasm, comparison of the approaches.
  • Assembly QC: biological and technical assessments of the three Cs (contiguity, correctness, completeness).
  • Contiguity using gfastats
  • Correctness using Merqury
  • Completeness using asmgene
  • Assembly cleanup and genome annotation: checks for contamination, genome annotation using Liftoff, MashMap, and Minimap2.
  • Phased assemblies: the power of phased assemblies, with examples.

Setup
This is a fully online, hands-on workshop. This workshop material will be run on the NeSI High Performance Computing (HPC) platforms – there is no need to install any software for this workshop. Instructions on how to access the NeSI HPC service will be sent out with the confirmation letter to registrants.

The material for this workshop can be previewed here.
Participants must have their own laptops and plan to participate actively. You will require a working web browser.

Register for this workshop at Eventbrite.

If you have any questions about these workshops, including whether they are suitable for you, please contact tyler.mcinnes@otago.ac.nz.

Mar
8
Fri
Genomics Aotearoa Seminar Series: “Privacy and the World of DTC – Data Breaches are already happening” @ Online
Mar 8 @ 3:00 pm – 4:00 pm

Genomics Aotearoa is pleased to announce its Friday seminar series starts with Andelka Philips and Jan Charbonneau (University of Tasmania) on Friday, March 8 at 3pm, talking on “Privacy and the World of DTC – Data Breaches are already happening.” This is a follow-on from the very successful update Andelka gave our Genomics Aotearoa community last year on their genetics privacy survey.

Mar
20
Wed
Genomics Aotearoa TRAINING: RNA-seq Data Analysis @ Online
Mar 20 @ 10:00 am – 4:00 pm

RNA-seq Data Analysis

This online workshop is delivered by Genomics Aotearoa and NeSI, and will be taught from 10:00am-4:00pm NZT on the Wednesday 20th of March, 2024. It is for New Zealand researchers interested in RNA-seq data analysis. The focus of this workshop is to analyse RNA-seq data with the aim to identify differentially expressed genes.

Some of the topics covered in the workshop are:

  • Quality assessment
  • Trimming and filtering
  • Mapping and read counts
  • Differential expression analysis
  • Over-representation analysis

Who this workshop is for:
This is a beginner-friendly workshop which assumes you are familiar with the basics of R ( e.g., you can copy basic functions like head, tail, or colSums, you are aware of how R stores files as Objects) and bash (e.g., can change directory with cd command, make a new folder with mkdir command, view contents using less command). If you would like a refresher on R you can find one here. If you would like a refresher on bash you can find one here.

Setup
This is a fully online, hands-on workshop. This workshop material will be run on the NeSI High Performance Computing (HPC) platforms – there is no need to install any software for this workshop. Instructions on how to access the NeSI HPC service will be sent out with the confirmation letter to registrants.

The material for this workshop can be previewed here.
Participants must have their own laptops and plan to participate actively. You will require a working web browser.

Register for this workshop at Eventbrite.

If you have any questions about these workshops, including whether they are suitable for you, please contact tyler.mcinnes@otago.ac.nz.

Mar
22
Fri
Genomics Aotearoa Seminar Series: “Seeing evolution through a cladistic blindfold; the challenges of thinking about evolving lineages in a world of taxa.” @ Online
Mar 22 @ 10:00 am – 11:00 am

On Friday March 22 at 10 am we present another international speaker – Ronald Jenner, Principal Researcher at the Natural History Museum in London. Ronald researches the evolution of animal venoms and the conceptual history of phylogenetics, and is the author of Venom: The secrets of nature’s deadliest weapon (with Eivind Undheim) and Ancestors in evolutionary biology. Linear thinking about branching trees.”

Ronald will be speaking to us live on “Seeing evolution through a cladistic blindfold; the challenges of thinking about evolving lineages in a world of taxa.” Please let colleagues know, and note the 10am start time.

Genomics Aotearoa SEMINAR: Seeing evolution through a cladistic blindfold; the challenges of thinking about evolving lineages in a world of taxa @ Online
Mar 22 @ 10:00 am – 11:00 am

SEMINAR: Seeing evolution through a cladistic blindfold; the challenges of thinking about evolving lineages in a world of taxa

 

Tēnā koutou katoa
We are pleased to invite you to our first Genomics Aotearoa seminar for 2024, online on Friday, February 23 at 10am.

We welcome an international speaker to start the seminar series – Dr Ronald Jenner, who is Principal Researcher at the National History Museum in London. Ronald will be speaking to us live on “Seeing evolution through a cladistic blindfold; the challenges of thinking about evolving lineages in a world of taxa.”

Please note the 10am start time.   

We encourage you to invite colleagues to join our genomics community and take part in this seminar. Look forward to seeing you there. Questions and discussions are welcome.
Join from PC, Mac, iOS, or Android:
https://otago.zoom.us/j/97097442106?pwd=RlczU3VCdFBmbmt4Yng4VW5OcHdSdz09

About Ronald Jenner
Ronald is Principal Researcher at the Natural History Museum in London, UK. He researches the evolution of animal venoms and the conceptual history of phylogenetics. He is the author of Venom. The secrets of nature’s deadliest weapon (with Eivind Undheim) and Ancestors in evolutionary biology. Linear thinking about branching trees.”

Mar
27
Wed
Genomics Aotearoa Training: Introduction to Bash Scripting and HPC Job Scheduler Online @ Online
Mar 27 @ 10:00 am – 4:00 pm

This online workshop is delivered by Genomics Aotearoa and NeSI, and will be taught from 10:00am-4:00pm NZT on Wednesday the 27th of March, 2024, and is for New Zealand researchers interested in learning to write scripts and submit jobs to an HPC using a scheduler. This workshop is an excellent follow-up for everyone who has recently completed the Introduction to R and Introduction to Bash workshops, although these are not strictly prerequisites. You are expected to have some knowledge of basic terminal commands.

Some of the topics covered in the workshop are:

– Designing a variant calling workflow.

– Automating a workflow.

– An introduction to HPC.

– Working with job scheduler.

Setup

This is a fully online, hands-on workshop. This workshop material will be run on the NeSI High Performance Computing (HPC) platforms – there is no need to install any software for this workshop. Instructions on how to access the NeSI HPC service will be sent out with the confirmation letter to registrants.

The material for this workshop can be previewed here.

Participants must have their own laptops and plan to participate actively. You will require a working web browser.

If you have any questions about these workshops, including whether they are suitable for you, please contact tyler.mcinnes@otago.ac.nz.

Asia-Pacific Genetics Seminar: Surveillance and countermeasures against coronaviruses with potential spillover from wildlife. @ Online
Mar 27 @ 4:00 pm – 5:00 pm

Tēnā koutou katoa
Please join us on Wednesday, March 27 at 4pm (NZDT) for the next seminar in the Asia-Pacific Genetics Seminar Series. Register in advance to receive an email with a link to the seminar.

Dr Shi Zhengli will be presenting on Surveillance and countermeasures against coronaviruses with potential spillover from wildlife.

Dr Shi is Professor Director of the Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases, Wuhan Institute of Virology (Chinese Academy of Sciences), and the Group Leader for the Emerging Virus Team.

Dr Shi focuses her research on the pathogen investigation of unknown viruses in wild animals and the interspecies infection mechanism of zoonotic viruses. She is in charge of the viral surveillance screening of bat samples, leading to the discovery and recognition of a wide-array of new SARS-like coronaviruses, adenoviruses and adeno-associated viruses in mainland China.

Her experience with bat coronavirus led to the rapid identification of the pathogen COVID-19 and its probable bat origin.

Dr Shi won the 2018 State Natural Science Award of China (Second Class), and was elected as a fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology in 2019. She has served since 2017 as Editor-in-Chief for Virologica Sinica.

The Asia-Pacific Genetics Seminar Series
The Asia-Pacific Genetics Seminar Series is a collaboration between the Genetics Society of Japan (GSJ) and the Genetics Society of Australasia (GSA). The quarterly seminar aims to further develop the field of genetics and promote international exchange among researchers in Asia and the Pacific.