Christophe Dessimoz
LightNews LightNews
banner
dessimoz.bsky.social
Christophe Dessimoz
@dessimoz.bsky.social
660 followers 200 following 27 posts
Executive Director of SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics @sib.swiss and Professor at the University of Lausanne (UNIL), Switzerland. @cdessimoz and @[email protected] elsewhere. Comparative Genomics, Phylogenetics, Evolution, Computational Biology.
Posts Replies Media Videos
dessimoz.bsky.social
Shocking and very sad news. Peer Bork passed away much too soon. Our thoughts are with his family, friends, and the entire EMBL community. www.embl.org/news/embl-an...
In remembrance of Peer Bork  | EMBL
EMBL and its community are deeply saddened by the death of Peer Bork, the organisation’s Interim Director General.
www.embl.org
January 16, 2026 at 8:00 PM
Reposted by Christophe Dessimoz
sib.swiss
🎉 Congratulations to Bgee and the two complementary SwissOrthology knowledgebases, OMA and OrthoDB, for being selected as ELIXIR Core Data Resources! See more👇

@bgee.org @marcrr.bsky.social @dessimoz.bsky.social @elixir-europe.org
Three further SIB knowledgebases gain prestigious European recognition
A total of eight expertly curated knowledgebases developed by SIB scientists are now designated as ELIXIR Core Data Resources (CDRs) – with the three new additions representing half of those sel...
www.sib.swiss
January 12, 2026 at 10:26 AM
Reposted by Christophe Dessimoz
firefoxx66.bsky.social
This needs boosting.
How we share data now, determines how prepared we are for tomorrow. That includes having access to *all* who need it (inccitizen scientists like @ryanhisner.bsky.social) & being able to use it in dashboards & apps.
Having one place control it all - is dangerous.

#OpenScience
kakape.bsky.social Kai Kupferschmidt @kakape.bsky.social · 10d
“[P]utting data into GISAID is like dropping it in a mail slot in an unmarked building,” says @colincarlson.bsky.social. “It’s wonderful that there’s so much cool stuff in that building. It would be great if we knew who owned it, or who paid for it, or what they plan to do with it.”
#IDsky 🧪
Fresh conflicts erupt around giant database for flu and COVID-19 sequences
Critics say “autocratic” behavior by GISAID could hamper response to a future pandemic
www.science.org
January 8, 2026 at 3:05 PM
Reposted by Christophe Dessimoz
kakape.bsky.social
“[P]utting data into GISAID is like dropping it in a mail slot in an unmarked building,” says @colincarlson.bsky.social. “It’s wonderful that there’s so much cool stuff in that building. It would be great if we knew who owned it, or who paid for it, or what they plan to do with it.”
#IDsky 🧪
Fresh conflicts erupt around giant database for flu and COVID-19 sequences
Critics say “autocratic” behavior by GISAID could hamper response to a future pandemic
www.science.org
January 7, 2026 at 9:51 AM
Reposted by Christophe Dessimoz
sib.swiss
We are pleased to welcome 3 new Group Leaders to SIB as of 1 January 2026.
Nadine Fournier leads the Biomedical Data Science Facility at UNIGE
Tim Roloff-Handschin and Helena Seth-Smith (UZH) join SIB’s microbial genomics community.
These appointments strengthen SIB’s network and expertise.
January 5, 2026 at 3:07 PM
Reposted by Christophe Dessimoz
tairnews.bsky.social
#TAIR is a key reference tool #plantscience. That's why nearly 100 volunteers chose to contribute to the soon-to-be-released reannotation of the #Arabidopsis genome. 🧪

Meet one of those volunteers: Emmanuel Boutet: bit.ly/4p6FagQ

#plantbiology #genomics #TAIR12 #plantbiology #scisky
December 29, 2025 at 6:06 PM
Reposted by Christophe Dessimoz
sib.swiss
👉 Point your friends, family and connections to our new video 📹 on the point of bioinformatics!

The 90-second video is available in:

🇬🇧 youtu.be/yjbv1WZcM2M
🇫🇷 youtu.be/BG-h_nxwSE4
🇩🇪 youtu.be/e4S4m1IhfiU
🇮🇹 youtu.be/V4QcZHjnsGo
December 10, 2025 at 8:55 AM
Reposted by Christophe Dessimoz
pedrobeltrao.bsky.social
We are hiring for a web developer position, ideally with some experience in bioinformatics. This position is aimed at helping us turn our research in human genetics into useful tools. A background in either bioinformatics or web development is required.

jobs.ethz.ch/job/view/JOP...
Full Stack Web Developer for Life Science Research
jobs.ethz.ch
December 9, 2025 at 5:10 PM
Reposted by Christophe Dessimoz
pasteur.fr
🔬 Call to create junior research groups at the Institut Pasteur

Focus: Infectious diseases, host-microbe interactions, vaccines
Special interest: AI methodologies

📅 Deadline: Feb 9, 2026
👥 2-12 years post-PhD

Apply now 📝 research.pasteur.fr/en/call/crea...

#JobOpportunity #Research
Creation of new junior research groups at the Institut Pasteur - Call for applications 2026 - Research
The Institut Pasteur is launching an international call to recruit new junior research group leaders leveraging cutting-edge transdisciplinary approaches to exploring infectious diseases, host-microbe...
research.pasteur.fr
December 8, 2025 at 8:53 AM
Reposted by Christophe Dessimoz
sib.swiss
We are deeply saddened to share the passing of Amos Bairoch, pioneer of bioinformatics and co-founder of SIB. His lifelong commitment for high-quality, open data transformed global research. We honour his legacy by continuing to build the future of bioinformatics.
Amos Bairoch, Swiss pioneer of bioinformatics, passes away
We are deeply saddened to announce the passing of our co-founder and Group Leader Amos Bairoch. Emeritus professor at the University of Geneva, he shaped the development of bioinformatics over more th...
www.sib.swiss
December 2, 2025 at 8:24 AM
Reposted by Christophe Dessimoz
elisabethbik.bsky.social
I will be giving several talks this coming week at universities in Switzerland: Lausanne, Neuchâtel, Basel, and Bern. Hope to see some of you there!
November 29, 2025 at 1:37 PM
Reposted by Christophe Dessimoz
jasonwilliamsny.bsky.social
Interested in learning materials to prepare undergraduate students for working with pathogens and pathogen data? I’m hosting a small curriculum development sprint/workshop. Industry/clinical and educators needed.

Please share. Apply by November 28, 2025
dnalc.cshl.edu/pdn-2026-wor...
Call for Applications: Pathogen Data CUREs—Curriculum Development Workshop
dnalc.cshl.edu
November 11, 2025 at 8:29 PM
Reposted by Christophe Dessimoz
eccb-europe.bsky.social
🚀 Partner with ECCB 2026 in Geneva (31 Aug–4 Sept), gathering 1,000+ experts in compbio, bioinformatics, AI, biodiversity & data-driven health, to:
🔹Showcase your innovations
🔹Increase your visibility in Europe
🔹Recruit top talents
👉 Explore our packages: eccb2026.org/become-partner
November 25, 2025 at 11:14 AM
Reposted by Christophe Dessimoz
yawaguchi.bsky.social
I’ve released a tool to sketch and edit phylogenetic trees!
yawak.jp/PhyloWeaver/

Load a Newick file and intuitively add/remove/resize branches.
Useful for quick conceptual trees, extracting subtrees, or turning ideas into Newick.
PhyloWeaver – Interactive phylogenetic tree editor
Edit and visualize phylogenetic trees directly in your browser. PhyloWeaver lets you interactively rearrange tree topologies and export high-quality figures for publications and presentations.
yawak.jp
November 18, 2025 at 1:59 AM
Reposted by Christophe Dessimoz
irenejulca.bsky.social
Interested in the newest developments in orthology? Check out the last Quest for Orthologs (QfO9) meeting report:
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
#orthology #function #domains #AI #paralogy
Thanks to @sinamajidian.bsky.social and all co-authors for their valuable contribution.
November 18, 2025 at 11:52 AM
Reposted by Christophe Dessimoz
bffo.bsky.social
From @csoneson.bsky.social , @markrobinsonca.bsky.social & colleagues in @plos.org #Computational #Biology | Building a continuous #benchmarking ecosystem in #bioinformatics | #Education 🧬 🖥️ 🧪 🔓  
⬇️
journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol...
Building a continuous benchmarking ecosystem in bioinformatics
Benchmarking, which involves collecting reference datasets and demonstrating method performance, is a requirement for the development of new computational tools, but also becomes a domain of its own t...
journals.plos.org
November 15, 2025 at 5:11 PM
Reposted by Christophe Dessimoz
hansonmark.bsky.social
We wrote the Strain on scientific publishing to highlight the problems of time & trust. With a fantastic group of co-authors, we present The Drain of Scientific Publishing:

a 🧵 1/n

Drain: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820
Strain: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
Oligopoly: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
A table showing profit margins of major publishers. A snippet of text related to this table is below. 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year. A figure detailing the drain on researcher time. 1. The four-fold drain 1.2 Time The number of papers published each year is growing faster than the scientific workforce, with the number of papers per researcher almost doubling between 1996 and 2022 (Figure 1A). This reflects the fact that publishers’ commercial desire to publish (sell) more material has aligned well with the competitive prestige culture in which publications help secure jobs, grants, promotions, and awards. To the extent that this growth is driven by a pressure for profit, rather than scholarly imperatives, it distorts the way researchers spend their time. The publishing system depends on unpaid reviewer labour, estimated to be over 130 million unpaid hours annually in 2020 alone (9). Researchers have complained about the demands of peer-review for decades, but the scale of the problem is now worse, with editors reporting widespread difficulties recruiting reviewers. The growth in publications involves not only the authors’ time, but that of academic editors and reviewers who are dealing with so many review demands. Even more seriously, the imperative to produce ever more articles reshapes the nature of scientific inquiry. Evidence across multiple fields shows that more papers result in ‘ossification’, not new ideas (10). It may seem paradoxical that more papers can slow progress until one considers how it affects researchers’ time. While rewards remain tied to volume, prestige, and impact of publications, researchers will be nudged away from riskier, local, interdisciplinary, and long-term work. The result is a treadmill of constant activity with limited progress whereas core scholarly practices – such as reading, reflecting and engaging with others’ contributions – is de-prioritized. What looks like productivity often masks intellectual exhaustion built on a demoralizing, narrowing scientific vision. A table of profit margins across industries. The section of text related to this table is below: 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year. The costs of inaction are plain: wasted public funds, lost researcher time, compromised scientific integrity and eroded public trust. Today, the system rewards commercial publishers first, and science second. Without bold action from the funders we risk continuing to pour resources into a system that prioritizes profit over the advancement of scientific knowledge.
November 11, 2025 at 11:52 AM
Reposted by Christophe Dessimoz
sib.swiss
Join our upcoming @fidelis-project.bsky.social network training event, organized by SIB, to explore: AI for Digital Repositories: Opportunities and Challenges, on 2 December 2025, 15:00–16:30 CET. eden-fidelis.eu/events/ai-di...

@sduvaud.bsky.social @geertvangeest.bsky.social
November 10, 2025 at 2:44 PM
Reposted by Christophe Dessimoz
fbm-unil.bsky.social
Save the date!
𝗦𝘄𝗶𝘀𝘀 𝗠𝗶𝗰𝗿𝗼𝗯𝗶𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘀 𝗙𝗼𝗿𝘂𝗺 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟲
The NCCR Microbiomes presents the third edition of the #Swiss #Microbiomes #Forum
🗓️ Thursday, Feb 5th 2026
🕑 14h00
📍 EPFL Rolex Learning Center, Lausanne
🎟️ Free to attend, but registration is required.
🔗 nccr-microbiomes.ch/tech-transfe...
Third edition - 2026 - NCCR
nccr-microbiomes.ch
November 6, 2025 at 9:10 AM
Reposted by Christophe Dessimoz
waynemaddison.bsky.social
The end of an era: the Tree of Life Web Project is going dark after 3 decades. Anyone interested in communicating phylogeny online should read David's account of goals, history, and future. @bembidion.bsky.social
subulatepalpomere.com/2025/11/02/t...
The Passing of the Tree of Life Web Project
The Tree of Life Web Project began its journey almost 40 years ago, and was formally announced in early 1996. It has served thousands of pages of information about the evolutionary tree of life and…
subulatepalpomere.com
November 3, 2025 at 3:54 PM
Reposted by Christophe Dessimoz
eccb-europe.bsky.social
📣 The call for tutorials & workshops at #ECCB2026 is now open! Share your tools, methods or expertise with the community.
🗓️ Deadline: 5 January 2026
👉 Submit: tinyurl.com/tw-eccb26

💡 ECCB will take place on 31 Aug–4 Sept in Geneva, gathering 1,000+ scientists from academia, industry, & healthcare.
November 3, 2025 at 8:09 AM
dessimoz.bsky.social
Beyond science, the stakes are national. Having Swiss-based, reference-quality data collections — managed in line with our laws and values — strengthens our ability to make informed decisions and act independently.
sib.swiss SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics @sib.swiss · Oct 30
💡 No AI in health without great data. In @BilanMagazine’s health supplement, Christophe Dessimoz @dessimoz.bsky.social makes the case for Switzerland as a leader in trusted, high-quality health data — and how turning data into public value starts with strong infrastructures.
👇 Read more
Reliable data for better care
Every medical revolution has been driven by a technological breakthrough: chemical synthesis paved the way for modern medicines, genetics for the first gene therapies. The next frontier will be determ...
www.sib.swiss
November 1, 2025 at 7:59 AM
Reposted by Christophe Dessimoz
dessimoz.bsky.social
Job alert🚨📢! Join us as Director of the SIB Centre for Pathogen Bioinformatics, on a topic where global collaboration is particularly important, in a highly stimulating environment. This is a research infrastructure leadership position.

Apply or spread the word!

apply.refline.ch/499599/0346/...
Director, Center for Pathogen Bioinformatics
The Centre for Pathogen Bioinformatics (CPB) is a unit of SIB which offers expertise and services in pathogen bioinformatics, computational molecular epidemiology and related multi-site project manage...
apply.refline.ch
October 23, 2025 at 5:34 AM
dessimoz.bsky.social
Our lab has published a couple of major papers in the past few months, which I would like to highlight in this thread! 🧵
October 23, 2025 at 6:10 AM
dessimoz.bsky.social
Job alert🚨📢! Join us as Director of the SIB Centre for Pathogen Bioinformatics, on a topic where global collaboration is particularly important, in a highly stimulating environment. This is a research infrastructure leadership position.

Apply or spread the word!

apply.refline.ch/499599/0346/...
Director, Center for Pathogen Bioinformatics
The Centre for Pathogen Bioinformatics (CPB) is a unit of SIB which offers expertise and services in pathogen bioinformatics, computational molecular epidemiology and related multi-site project manage...
apply.refline.ch
October 23, 2025 at 5:34 AM