Workshop “Viral and Bacterial Metagenomics with Lazypipe" at the University of Helsinki

On April 25th, 2024, the University of Helsinki welcomed a group of researchers for a workshop titled “Viral and Bacterial Metagenomics with Lazypipe.” 

Held at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Viikki Campus, the workshop hosted our participants, Kasun Godakumara and Chanaka Premathilake from the Estonian University of Life Sciences (EMÜ), along with Radko Avi from the University of Tartu (UT). They were guided by Dr. Ravi Kant and Dr. Ilja Weinstein from the University of Helsinki, who shared their expertise on viral metagenomics.

Throughout the workshop, participants explored the theoretical aspects of viral metagenomics, learning about the interactions between viruses and their genomes. The event included practical sessions where they used Lazypipe, a cloud-based metagenomics platform designed by University of Helsinki researchers. Lazypipe analyzes Next Generation Sequence (NGS) data, focusing on viral and bacterial metagenomics with improved accuracy and speed thanks to a two-step annotation process.

Participants gained a detailed understanding of Lazypipe's functionality and participated in extensive hands-on training with custom datasets. This tool promises to be valuable for analyzing metagenomic data in future studies.

After the workshop, collaboration began between the IT support team at EMU and researchers from Helsinki to make Lazypipe accessible on EMU computers. This system is expected to be highly beneficial for upcoming environmental virology (EV) metagenomics research.

This workshop was a significant step forward for the researchers, providing them with knowledge and tools to enhance their research in viral and bacterial metagenomics.

For those interested in more details about Lazypipe, you can check out University of Helsinki's website or read the following articles:

- Ilya Plyusnin et al., "Novel NGS pipeline for virus discovery from a wide spectrum of hosts and sample types," Virus Evolution, 2020. (https://doi.org/10.1093/ve/veaa091)

- Plyusnin I. et al., "Enhanced Viral Metagenomics with Lazypipe 2," Viruses, 2023. (https://doi.org/10.3390/v15020431)

This workshop was a significant step forward for the OH-Boost team, providing them with knowledge and tools to enhance their research in viral and bacterial metagenomics.

Date published: 10/06/2024