On March 14, the RISE-Health R&D Unit, the Associate Laboratory RISE and the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Porto (FMUP) hosted the conference ‘Introduction to EMBL-EBI: Data Resources and Training for Clinical Researchers’, presented by researcher Dayane Araújo, responsible for scientific training at the European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI, one of the centres of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory), addressed to the students of FMUP’s Degree in Digital Health and Biomedical Innovation (SauD InoB).

At the event, which was attended by Fernando Schmitt, director of the Associate Laboratory RISE, and moderated by Sule Canberk, researcher at the RISE-Health R&D Unit (RISE-Health@RISE/FMUP), Dayane Araújo discussed the role that EMBL-EBI plays in areas such as ‘building information sources, promoting reference research, training a new generation of researchers, developing relations and partnerships with industry and coordinating bioinformatics in Europe’.

Talking about her work in Cambridge (UK), the expert explained the different sources of information that EMBL-EBI develops in areas such as bioinformatics and machine-learning.

During her talk, Dayane explained the impact that Artificial Intelligence (AI), machine-learning and biological imaging can have on research. ‘We add value to the data submitted to our resources through curation and annotation by experts,’ she said, noting that in some cases Artificial Intelligence is integrated into the bioinformatics ecosystem, a process that strengthens the development of new treatments and genomic and personalised medicine.

At the end of the session, the researcher emphasised the importance of each researcher sharing the information they produce, as it could also be useful for other scientific work.

The conference ‘Introduction to EMBL-EBI: Data Resources and Training for Clinical Researchers’ was supported by the RISE-Health R&D Unit and the Associate Laboratory RISE. The conference was also supported by João Fonseca and Nuno Vale (RISE-Health@RISE/FMUP), who are responsible for the SauD InoB degree programme.

Find out more about Dayane Araújo and her research work  here.