The Biodiversity Program at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology (IBE; CSIC-UPF) organizes the first edition of the workshop AGCTually Annotating Genomes, a student-led initiative offering intensive training in genome annotation techniques.

The course will take place from May 5 to 10, 2025, at Pompeu Fabra University (UPF), and is especially aimed at postdoctoral researchers, PhD students, master's students, and technical staff from the IBE's Biodiversity Program. Sessions will run from 9:30 AM to 5:00 PM and include theoretical and practical components.

Advanced training in genome annotation

The aim of the course is to provide participants with cutting-edge knowledge in both structural and functional genome annotation, as well as to share leading methodologies and tools in the field. The course also seeks to strengthen the international research community dedicated to biodiversity genomics.

“It took 248 authors to annotate the human genome, now only one of you can do it”

A program with international experts

The program features internationally recognized experts such as Aureliano Bombarely, Katharina Hoff, Yannis Nevers, Ana Rojas, Pablo Atienza, and Ana Conesa, who will deliver workshops and lectures on key topics in genome annotation:

• Genome assembly using long reads (Aureliano Bombarely)
• Quality Evaluation for Genomes (Aureliano Bombarely)
• Annotation of Protein Coding Genes (Katharina Hoff)
• Hands-on Genome Annotation Tutorial (Katharina Hoff)
• Annotation using long read technology (Ana Conesa and Pablo Atienza)
• Functional ANnoTAtion based on embedding space SimilArity (Ana Rojas)
• Leveraging evolutionary information to build a consensus annotation with OMAnnotator (Yannis Nevers)
• Structural genome annotation with Helixer (Aureliano Bombarely)
• Structural genome annotation QC (Aureliano Bombarely)

These sessions combine theory and practice, with a hands-on approach to genome annotation using next-generation tools.

Workshop program: "AGCTually Annotating Genomes"

This initiative is funded by the Secretariat for Universities and Research of the Department of Economy and Knowledge of the Government of Catalonia (AGAUR 2021-SGR00420) and Pompeu Fabra University (UPF).