Event Calendar » International Virus Bioinformatics Meeting 2022

The International Virus Bioinformatics Meeting 2022 (ViBioM 2022) took place online, 23–25 March 2022. The meeting was jointly organized by the European Virus Bioinformatics Center (EVBC), the Institute of Agrochemistry and Food Technology (IATA-CSIC), and the University of Valencia. 

ViBioM 2022 was planned to take place in Valencia, Spain. As the number of Omicron cases in Europe has been rapidly increasing in January 2022, we decided to again switch to an online format to avoid creating a transmission hotspot for SARS-CoV-2 and to make the conference planning less complicated (in terms of safety regulations and travel restrictions).

ViBioM 2022 offered a great possibility to exchange the latest research results and experiences with an extensive network of leading experts in virology and bioinformatics and engage in inspiring discussions. Our aim was to encourage and assist scientific exchange in both areas and initiate scientific cooperation. The meeting focused on bioinformatics approaches in virology and welcomed any contributions dealing with the recent advancements and current understanding of computational technology of virology.

We had an incredibly high amount of registered participants. Even during the ongoing conference, there were registrations up to the last day. There was a lot of fluctuation among the 380 registered participants and not everyone attended all talks. However, we had a solid base of between 100–150 participants during each of the talks. Of all registered participants, ~19% are EVBC members, so ViBioM is attracting scientists far beyond the EVBC community.

As in 2020, the participants made it possible to create a highly interactive scientific environment even without physical face-to-face interactions. Breakout rooms of the speakers for continued discussion during the coffee breaks have been extensively used.

In total, the meeting featured eight invited and 18 contributed talks in eight sessions on three days, as well as 52 posters which were presented during three virtual poster sessions.

Invited Speakers

Awardees

Best ECR Talk Award: Spyros Lytras
Best Poster Awards: Luca Nishimura, Celia Pas, Gabriel Lenconi Lovate

Special Issues and Conference Report

Simultaneously to the meeting, we have published a special issue on Virus Bioinformatics in Viruses, including a conference report summing up the meeting.

Program Schedule

You can find the abstracts here.

Wednesday, 23rd March: Satellite Meeting on SARS-CoV-2

9:45	Welcome
	MORNING SESSION Chair: Martin Hölzer
10:00–10:30	The changing landscape of SARS-CoV-2 genetic diversity Francois Balloux, University College London, UCL Genetics Institute, Computational Systems Biology
10:30–10:50	covSonar: Efficient and rapid genome profiling of SARS-CoV-2 sequences Alice Wittig, Hasso Plattner Institute, Robert Koch Institute, Data Analytics and Computational Statistics, Bioinformatics, Berlin, Germany
10:50–11:10	COFFEE BREAK
11:10–11:30	The emergence of SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern is driven by acceleration of the substitution rate Sebastian Duchene, University of Melbourne, Australia
11:30–11:50	VOCAL: An early warning system to detect concerning new SARS-CoV-2 variants from sequencing data Kunaphas Kongkitimano, Robert Koch Institute, MF1 – Bioinformatics, Berlin, Germany
11:50–13:00	LUNCH BREAK
13:00–14:30	Poster Session on SARS-CoV-2
	AFTERNOON SESSION Chair: Fernando Gonzales-Candelas
14:30–15:00	SARS-CoV-2 genomic epidemiology: Bayesian phylodynamic reconstruction and characterization of antigenic evolution Philippe Lemey, Evolutionary and Computational Virology, KU Leuven, Belgium
15:00–15:20	ImpuSARS: A new tool for whole-genome imputation of SARS-CoV-2 Francisco Ortuño, Fundación Progreso y Salud, Área de Bioinformática Clínica, Sevilla, Spain
15:20–15:40	COFFEE BREAK
15:40–16:00	National-scale surveillance of emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants in wastewater Fabian Amman, CeMM – Forschungszentrum für Molekulare Medizin, Vienna, Austria
16:00–16:20	The power of SARS-CoV-2 genotyping and SNP-based clustering for contextual outbreak assessment Denis Beslic, Robert Koch Institute, MF1, Berlin, Germany
16:20–17:00	FINAL COFFEE
19:00	5 Years EVBC Birthday Celebration

Thursday, 24th March

9:00	Welcome
	Session 1: Viral emergence and surveillance Chair: Magda Bletsa
09:30–10:00	Real-time to Real-life: Phylogenetics, Pandemics, and What Comes Next Emma Hodcroft, Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine, University of Bern, Switzerland
10:00– 10:30	Can genomics help prevent viral emergence? Daniel Streicker, Institute of Biodiversity, Animal Health & Comparative Medicine, University of Glasgow, United Kingdom
10:30–10:50	Genomic Surveillance of the Rift Valley fever: from Sequencing to Lineage assignment John Juma, International Livestock Research Institute/University of Western Cape, Animal and Human Healt, Nairobi, Kenya
10:50–11:10	COFFEE BREAK
	Session 2: Virus-host interactions Chair: Kevin Lamkiewicz
11:10–11:40	Diverse anti-interferon strategies by members of the genus phlebovirus Friedemann Weber, Institute for Virology, Gießen, Germany
11:40–12:00	Staying below the radar and exploiting the host – A toolbox for studying RNA virus – host factor interactions Andreas Gruber, University of Konstanz, Department of Biology, Konstanz, Germany
12:00-12:20	Multi-omics reveals principles of gene regulation and pervasive non-productive transcription in the human cytomegalovirus genome Christopher Jürges, University of Würzburg, Germany
12:20–13:30	LUNCH BREAK
13:30–15:30	Poster Session A
	Session 3: Viral Sequence analysis Chair: Daniel Todt
15:30–16:00	Origins and implications of the quasispecies concept Esteban Domingo, Centro de Biología Molecular “Severo Ochoa” (CSIC-UAM), Madrid, Spain
16:00–16:20	A guidance to store your virus sequence and knowledge Muriel Ritsch, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Jena, Germany
16:20–16:40	Exploring the dinucleotide composition of the Flaviviridae with DinuQ Spyros Lytras, MRC – University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research, Glasgow, UK
16:40–17:00	Genotype-based classification of IAV to unravel reassortment candidates Alexander Henoch, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science, Jena, Germany
17:00–17:30	FINAL COFFEE
19:00	Ask me Anything wih the keynote speakers

Friday, 25th March

9:15	Welcome
	Session 4: Virus identification and annotation Chair: Alba Pérez-Cataluña
09:30–09:50	VirSorter2: a multi-classifier, expert-guided approach to detect diverse DNA and RNA viruses Jiarong Guo, Ohio State University, Microbiology, United States
09:50–10:10	Evaluation of gene-calling programs for viral genome annotation Enrique Gonzalez-Tortuero, University of Salford, United Kingdom
10:10–10:30	COFFEE BREAK
10:30–11:30	EVBC Meeting: Updates and future perspectives of the EVBC
11:30–12:45	Poster Session B
12:45–14:00	LUNCH BREAK
	Session 5: Phages Chair: Noriko Cassman
14:00–14:30	Phages in the human gut: a taxonomist’s perspective Evelien Adriaenssens, Quadram Institute Bioscience, Norwich Research Park, Norwich, UK
14:30–14:50	Dual identification of novel phage receptor-binding proteins based on protein domains and machine learning Dimitri Boeckaerts, Ghent University, Laboratory of Applied Biotechnology, Ghent, Belgium
14:50–15:10	Predicting viral capsid architectures from metagenomes Antoni Luque, San Diego State University, Viral Information Institute, San Diego, United States
15:10–15:30	COFFEE BREAK
	Session 6: Viral diversity Chair: Manja Marz
15:30–16:00	Ocean viruses: Patterns, processes, and paradigms on a planetary scale Matthew Sullivan, Ohio State University, United States
16:00–16:20	Community typing as a way to explore virome compositional changes in IBD patients Daan Jansen, KU Leuven, Department of Immunology, Microbiology and Transplantation, Leuven, Belgium
16:20–16:40	vAMPirus: An automated virus amplicon sequence analysis program to support investigations of viral community ecology Alex Veglia, Rice University, Department of BioSciences, Houston, United States of America
16:40–16:50	COFFEE BREAK
16:50–17:30	Discussion / Best Poster and Talk / Closing Ceremony
19:00	ViBioM Game Night

Poster Sessions

Poster Session on SARS-CoV-2: Wednesday, 23rd March

S01	Population genetics and evolution of SARS-CoV-2 around the Delta variant emergence Miguel Álvarez Herrera | Institute for Integrative Systems Biology, Valencia, Spain
S02	Near-full compression of SARS-CoV-2 peptidome Li Chuin Chong | TWINCORE Gmbh, Hannover, Germany
S03	Comparison of Results from Three Different Algorithms of In Silico Interaction Between Onosmone and Sars-CoV-2 Main Protease Tarik Corbo | University of Sarajevo, Institute for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
S04	Impact of SARS-CoV-2 lineages on the survival of hospitalized patients Carlos Sánchez and Carlos Loucera | Fundacion Progreso y Salud, Sevilla, Spain
S05	The Andalusian circuit for SARS-CoV-2 whole genome sequencing Javier Pérez-Florid | Fundacion Progreso y Salud, Sevilla, Spain
S06	SARS-CoV-2 variants preferentially emerge at intrinsically disordered protein sites helping immune evasion Federica Quaglia | University of Padua, Padova, Italy
S07	Relevant mutations in SARS-CoV-2 with strong genetic association to phenotypes of interest Paula Ruiz-Rodriguez | I2SysBio, Paterna, Spain
S08	Viral Instant Mutation Viewer (VIMVer): a tool to speed up the identification and analysis of new SARS-CoV2 emerging variant Vincent Wilde | UMR 7257 (AFMB), Marseille, France
S09	Application of next-generation sequencing in selected Latvian SARS-CoV-2 outbreak investigations of particular interest Nikita Zrelovs | Latvian Biomedical Research and Study Centre, Riga, Latvia
S10	Assessment of CDC’s COVID Data Tracker Nowcast Model Accuracy and Reliability Philip Shirk | Centers for Disease Control, Atlanta, USA

Poster Session A: Thursday, 24th March

A01	DRUMMER – Rapid detection of RNA modifications through comparative nanopore sequencing Jonathan Abebe | New York University, New York, United States
A02	Finding genetic markers of zoonotic transmission of Influenza A virus using phylogenetic inference on large datasets Klara Marie Andersen | Technical University of Denmark, Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark
A03	Evolutionary history of peste des petits ruminants virus Arnaud Bataille | CIRAD, Montpellier, France
A04	Molecular epidemiology of the hematophagous bat genetic variant in Colombia and its relationship whit other countries of Latin-America Maria Fernanda Carreño | Instituto Nacional de Salud, Bogota, Colombia
A05	Using phylogenetics and RNA structure predictions tools to generate hypotheses on the mechanisms of avian influenza virus evolution towards highly pathogenic forms Gabriel Dupré | ENVT / INRAE, Toulouse, France
A06	Error correction and local haplotype reconstruction for NGS data Lara Fuhrmann | ETH Zurich, Basel, Switzerland
A07	Intra-host analysis of hepaciviral glycoprotein evolution reveals signatures associated with viral persistence and clearance André Gömer | Ruhr-University Bochum, Bochum, Germany
A08	Beyond the genome: The diverse and dynamic post-translational modification landscape of betacoronaviruses as a driver of rapid evolutionary adaptation Jessica Gonzalez | Florida International University, Miami, USA
A09	Is Rigvir a potential oncolytic virotherapy agent? Genome comparisons and cytolytic properties of Rigvir and other echovirus 7 isolates Eero Hietanen | University of Turku, Turku, Finland
A11	A comprehensive overview of RNA-Protein interaction prediction methods Sarah Krautwurst | Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Jena, Germany
A12	RNA modification detection from raw nanopore signals Sebastian Krautwurst | Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Jena, Germany
A13	Say Hello to the Lamkiewicz-Lab: RNA-Protein-Interactions and more! Kevin Lamkiewicz | Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Jena, Germany
A14	Reproducible RNA-RNA interaction probing for RNA proximity ligation data with RNAswarm Gabriel Lencioni Lovate | Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Jena, Germany
A15	COAST: A bioinformatic tool to identify the closest proteomes Diogo Macedo | Universiade do Minho, Braga, Portugal
A16	HIV transmission network analysis Daiana Mir | Universidad de la República (UdelaR), Salto, Uruguay
A17	Molecular epidemiology of Rotavirus in Tehran, Iran; rare and unusual G9P[8] and G6P[14] types among children with acute gastroenteritis Seyed Reza Mohebbi | Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
A19	Genomic plasticity: Role of Hepatitis E virus genome insertions in viral fitness and resistance Maximilian Klaus Nocke | Ruhr University Bochum, Bochum, Germany
A20	Molecular Epidemiology of measles in Colombia: outbreak description 2017-2020 Carolina Peña Guzman | Instituto Nacional de Salud, Bogota, Colombia
A21	GrandR: leveraging the power of RNA metabolic labeling to record transcriptional activity in single cells Lygeri Sakellardi | University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany
A22	Identification and characterization of enzymes linked with evolution and stable genome size increase of large (+) RNA viruses. Bhawna Sama | Aix-Marseille Université, Marseille, France
A23	Detection of intra-subtype recombination events within transmission clusters Anahi Sánchez | Universidad Autónoma de la Ciudad de México, Ciudad de México, México
A24	Bioinformatic techniques to identify minor variations in influenza virus sequences generated using NGS technology Sandra Seby | Centers for Disease Control, Atlanta, USA
A25	Residue interaction network analysis of A(H1N1)pdm09 hemagglutinin evolution within antibody combining site Sb from 2009 to present Nicholas A Kovacs | Centers for Disease Control, Atlanta, USA
A26	RNASIV: Database of predicted viral mRNA structures Franziska Totzeck | Technical University Munich, Munich, Germany
A27	Real-time and remote MCMC trace inspection with Beastiary Wytamma Wirth | The University of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
A28	Method for Influenza Assay Primer Mismatch Detection Norman Hassell | Centers for Disease Control, Atlanta, USA

Poster Session B: Friday, 25th March

B01	Viral diversity and co-evolution with Fungal and Oomycete pathogens Alexander Allman | University of Greenwich, Gillingham, United Kingdom
B02	Host prediction from shotgun viromic data vs. 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing for deciphering marine phage-host interactions Felana Harilanto Andrianjakarivony | M.I.O. Institut Méditerranéen d’Océanologie Campus de Luminy – OCEANOMED, Marseille, France
B03	Expanding our knowledge on the diversity of invertebrate RNA viruses in the largest taxon sampling so far Anamarija Butkovic | CSIC I2SYSBIO, Valencia, Spain
B04	LABRADOR – a workflow for virus detection in HTS data Izabela Fabianska | IDT Biologika GmbH, Dessau-Roßlau, Germany
B05	Exploring the epidermal virome of carcharhinid sharks Ryan Hesse | San Diego State University, San Diego, United States
B06	The virome in IBD patients undergoing biological therapy Daan Jansen | KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
B07	The virome of Freesia hyb. showing leaf necrosis syndrome Laura Miozzi | Institute for Sustainable Plant Protection, Torino, Italy
B08	Virome analyses of the ancient individuals who lived in the Japanese archipelago 3,000 years ago Luca Nishimura | National Institute of Genetics, Mishima, Japan
B09	Transposable Prophages in Leptospira: An Ancient, Now Diverse, Group Predominant in Causative Agents of Weil’s Disease Eric Olo Ndela | Université Clermont Auvergne, Clermont-Ferrand, France
B10	Genomic determinants of viral host diversity Marina Parr | Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany
B11	A blueprint of tail fiber modularity and its relationship with host specificity for STEC serovars Célia Pas | Ghent University, Ghent, Germany
B12	Introducing the National Research Data Infrastructure for the Research of Microbiota (NFDI4Microbiota) Kristin Sauerland | Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research GmbH, Braunschweig, Germany
B13	Domain architecture shows extensive mosaicism of phage receptor binding proteins Bogna Smug | Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Kraków, Poland
B14	Comprehensive discovery of CRISPR targeted sequences from the human gut metagenome Ryota Sugimoto | National Institute of Genetics, Mishima Shizuoka, Japan
B15	Characterization of gut phages in HIV-infected patients Pablo Villoslada-Blanco | Center for Biomedical Research of La Rioja (CIBIR) / Universidad de La Rioja, Logroño, Spain
B16	Deep learning models for the Identification of novel viruses Yasas Wijesekara | University of Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany

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