{"id":8604,"date":"2025-11-17T14:03:55","date_gmt":"2025-11-17T13:03:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ubc.uu.nl\/?p=8604"},"modified":"2025-12-08T14:06:03","modified_gmt":"2025-12-08T13:06:03","slug":"review-of-the-ubc-annual-symposium-2025-bioinformatics-in-the-age-of-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ubc.uu.nl\/review-of-the-ubc-annual-symposium-2025-bioinformatics-in-the-age-of-ai\/","title":{"rendered":"Review of the UBC Annual Symposium 2025: Bioinformatics in the age of AI"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming the field of bioinformatics, and this development took centre stage at the 11th UBC Annual Symposium. The event brought together a vibrant community of researchers, students, and other professionals to meet and deepen our understanding of bioinformatics.<\/p>

The symposium, held on 7 November 2025 at the Princess M\u00e1xima Center, explored the theme Bioinformatics in the Age of AI. The day featured three keynote lectures, two sessions of short research pitches and a poster competition. This created a full programme of inspiration and exchange for all bioinformatics researchers in Utrecht and beyond.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Keynotes: From molecular puzzels to RNA's secrets<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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The scientific programme opened with\u00a0Alexandre Bonvin<\/a>\u00a0of Utrecht University, who presented how physics-based and AI-driven modelling can be used to solve the complex 3D puzzles of biomolecular interactions. His talk illustrated how computational approaches, like the HADDOCK software developed by his team, are advancing the way scientists investigate the molecular foundations of life.<\/p>

Later in the day,\u00a0Sebastian Lobentanzer<\/a>\u00a0from Helmholtz Munich and EMBL-EBI delivered a lecture titled \u201cAgentic Systems Are Upon Us.\u201d He explored how intelligent systems that act autonomously can accelerate biomedical research and inspire new ways of thinking about data and discovery.<\/p>

The closing keynote was delivered by\u00a0Yiliang Ding<\/a>\u00a0of the John Innes Centre. She shared how her pioneering research on RNA structures in living cells is uncovering new insights into the ways gene regulation is controlled. Ding also praised the Utrecht bioinformatics community for its energy and involvement. She noted she was very pleasantly surprised to see such big crowd, all from the same bioinformatics community in Utrecht.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Pitch Talks & poster presentations<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Between keynote lectures, early-career scientists presented their work in two pitch talk sessions: Machine Learning and Pipelines and Bioinformatics of Complex Traits. Topics ranged from protein embedding models and CRISPR-based analysis to transcriptomic profiling in disease and the computational study of plant and fungal systems.\u00a0<\/div><\/div>
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During the coffee and lunch breaks, the poster sessions created a pleasant atmosphere of exchange and networking. Roula Farag won this year\u2019s poster prize, while jury also recognised Daphne van Ginneken and Viktorija Vodilovska with an honourable mention.<\/div><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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Bioinformatics and applied sciences<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Another highlight of the morning was the presentation by\u00a0Chris van Oevelen<\/a>\u00a0from HU University of Applied Sciences Utrecht, which recently joined the UBC network. Van Oevelen outlined how the HU aims to further embed bioinformatics within both education and practice-oriented research. He warmly invited attendees to collaborate and explore new opportunities for connection between the HU and other research institutes across Utrecht Science Park.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Reflecting on the event, UBC Board member\u00a0Ronnie de Jonge<\/a>\u00a0expresses pride in the growing cohesion and enthusiasm of Utrecht\u2019s bioinformatics community. \u201cThis year\u2019s theme was highly relevant, with machine learning emerging as the most frequently mentioned expertise in the community. Also, it is inspiring to see how the community keeps evolving, with researchers and students eager to learn from one another. As keynote speaker Yiliang Ding noted, we truly have an interactive and dedicated community here. This what makes this symposium so special.\u201d<\/p>

The symposium review<\/a> was also published on the UU website by Aschwin Tenfelde<\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming the field of bioinformatics, and this development took centre stage at the 11th UBC Annual Symposium. The event brought together a vibrant community of researchers, students, and other professionals to meet and deepen our understanding of bioinformatics. The symposium, held on 7 November 2025 at the Princess M\u00e1xima Center, explored […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":94,"featured_media":8606,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_angie_page":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"page_builder":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[398,27,408],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-activities","category-highlights","category-news_freestyle"],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/ubc.uu.nl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Utrecht-Bioinformatics-Center-UBC-Symposium-2025-4V2A6856-5s.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ubc.uu.nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8604","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ubc.uu.nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ubc.uu.nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ubc.uu.nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/94"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ubc.uu.nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8604"}],"version-history":[{"count":29,"href":"https:\/\/ubc.uu.nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8604\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8641,"href":"https:\/\/ubc.uu.nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8604\/revisions\/8641"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ubc.uu.nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ubc.uu.nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ubc.uu.nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ubc.uu.nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}