AGENDA

i5K Coordinating Group

August 16 2023

11:00-12:00 EST

Meeting Chair: Kevin Hackett

Attending: Terrence Sylvester, Monica Poelchau, Nara Shin, Sue Brown, Chris Childers, Rongrong Shen, Glenn Hanes, Marc Halfon, Kevin Hackett, Duane McKenna, Josh Benoit, Robert Miller, Anna Childers, Marc Blaxter, Brian Scheffler, Rob Waterhouse

Regrets: Rob Waterhouse (only just escaped a previous meeting)

• Approval of previous meeting’s minutes.
• New member introductions
  • Terrence Sylvester, Nara Shin, Rongrong Shen from Duane McKenna’s group!
  • Terrence Sylvester - postdoc in Duane’s lab, genomics focus (structural and functional)
  • Nara Shin - postdoc in Duane’s lab - evolution of coleoptera. Specializes in lignocellulose degradation genes.
  • Rongrong Shen - postdoc in Duane’s lab- antenal morphological and phylogenetic work.
• CC member cameo of the month
  • Duane McKenna
  • Link to signup: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oM6RfRHYUfH_9pEH2-vpHv_f2Ujy-Hfm/edit
• Working group highlights (can change order)
  • Community building and outreach (chair: Brad; presenting: Josh)
    • They’ve created a set of stock slides for i5k presentations. Asking for a place to post it where it can be easily edited. We can upload it to the community building google drive (https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1azKGAXsNcVU_vgjrJ4G-Y7gpT58an6O7)
    • Other discussions on working with the training WG
  • Standards (chair: Monica)
    • We are organizing an initial group discussion to perform a gap analysis of best practices and standards specifically for _ arthropod _ genome projects - what existing standards and best practices can be readily adopted for insect genome projects; which ones may require modification; and where are standards and best practices completely lacking for insects? Outcomes from this discussion will directly inform the priorities of this working group.
    • We are recruiting people with expertise in various aspects of genome projects - from sample collection to annotation databasing.
    • We intend to recruit a subset of the people invited to the initial meeting to participate in the Standards WG as working members; others we may draw information from as SMEs.
    • We expect that the gap analysis discussion(s) will take place in September.
  • Exec committee
    • We discussed working group succession planning. Our suggestion is the following language: WG members will have 2-year renewable terms. WG members can opt out of their term if needed. WG chairs will keep track of member terms.
    • Executive committee will review the WGs on an annual basis (each summer)
    • Monica will document process of adding the i5k cc meeting minutes to github, so others can do this as well
  • Training (chair: Sue)
    • Working on bite-size training videos
    • Initial focus on Apollo/genome annotation
    • Sent to Monica and Anna
    • Are these the right scope? What do people think?
    • Talk to outreach working group about disseminating/advertising. E.g. could add to stock slides; create another webpage on github
    • If there are scripts, keep these so that they can be updated as needed.
  • Genome Project Coordination
    • We ran out of time and didn’t cover this.
• Working group additional items (example: AGS organization discussion from the Outreach WG)
• Other items from the community germane to the cc (e.g. relevant EBP updates, new funding opportunities, meetings/conferences)
  • Should we advertise the Biodiversity Genomics Academy (https://bga23.org/)? (Update - looks like Rob has already done this [yep]). Starts on September 1st. Run by individuals who write or run the programs. About 1200 people signed up now. They will be recorded. Should be workshops rather than lectures. Acknowledge that software and material changes. This could contribute to the education WG’s mission.
  • Mark - Project psyche has started, to sequence all the Lepidoptera of Europe (around 10,000 taxa). Up to 1,000 by spring 2024, and 2,000 by spring 2025. Looking for funding beyond this. There will be monthly meetings to get scientists together to work on specific topics/projects (e.g. evolution of gene families, etc). International participation from the analysis stage onward is welcome. It will be easy to get to 5k; more difficult to 10k. Open meeting will be on September 19th, UK pm (likely 1:30 - 3), on how far they are for identifying species, collection roster, sequencing.
  • Biodiversity genomics - if i5k wants a ‘linked project meeting’, there is time on the Friday of the conference that they would advertise.
  • GIGA meeting is happening in the fall in Cartagena, Colombia

NEXT MEETING: September 20 2023

11:00-12:00 EDT