Merge pull request #108 from alviitayyaba/main

New blog post: ISMB 2025: A Week of Learning, Teaching, and Connecting in Liverpool by Tayyaba Alvi

Author: hzahroh

content/posts/2025-08-25-Tayyaba-Alvi-ISMB2025.md

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+---
+author: alviitayyaba
+date: 2025-08-25 # format is YYYY-MM-DD
+
+category: 
+ - community
+ - event-fellowship
+ - travel-fellowship
+tag:
+ - community
+ - event-fellowship
+ - travel-fellowship
+
+title: "ISMB 2025: A Week of Learning, Teaching, and Connecting in Liverpool"
+url: /2025/08/25/2025-08-25-Tayyaba-Alvi-ISMB2025/ 
+---
+
+**_The_** [**_Open Bioinformatics Foundation (OBF) Event Fellowship program_**](/travel-awards) **_aims to promote diverse participation at events promoting open-source bioinformatics software development and open science practices in the biological research community. Tayyaba Alvi,_** _**a PhD student at**_ _**Fritz Lipmann Institute on Aging**_, **_was awarded an OBF Event Fellowship to attend_** _**the**_ **_[ISMB2025](https://www.iscb.org/ismbeccb2025/home)_**.
+
+## ISMB 2025: A Week of Learning, Teaching, and Connecting in Liverpool
+
+Thanks to the Event Fellowship from the Open Bioinformatics Foundation (OBF), I had the chance to attend the 33rd Conference on Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology (ISMB 2025) in Liverpool. It’s the annual meeting of the International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB) and the biggest conference in the field. This year, it brought together over 2,000 researchers from all over the world at ACC Liverpool, a beautiful venue right by the Albert Dock.
+
+![ACC Liverpool on the left, and a view of the main auditorium from the back, on the right](/img/2025/2025-08-25-TA1.png)
+
+## Day 1: Teaching and Kicking Things Off
+The conference started with workshops and tutorials, along with the ISCB Student Council Symposium. I was excited (and a little nervous!) to help organize and lead a tutorial on Mendelian Randomization (MR), together with two colleagues from my group. We had around 17 participants from different backgrounds and career stages join us for an interactive session on causal inference. We covered key assumptions, common pitfalls like pleiotropy, and hands-on examples in R. It was really rewarding to see people engage, ask questions, and reflect on how these methods might apply to their own work. If you are interested, you can find the tutorial slides and other information on the [Tutorial Page](https://donertas-group.github.io/ismb2025_mr_tutorial/).
+
+![Ongoing Tutorial on Causal Inference](/img/2025/2025-08-25-TA3.png)
+
+In the evening, we heard a fantastic keynote from John Jumper, who shared the story behind AlphaFold. He walked us through the ups and downs of building such a groundbreaking method, and how many of their ideas came from trial and error. It was fascinating and also really encouraging to hear how persistence and curiosity shaped their success.
+
+![Janet Thornton introducing the keynote speaker, John Jumper](/img/2025/2025-08-25-TA2.png)
+
+## Day 2–4: Talks, Posters, and Conversations
+The second day opened with a keynote from Amos Bairoch, who spoke about the ongoing challenges in biocuration. With so much biological data being generated, his talk highlighted just how important curated, high-quality data resources are, and how we need to keep investing in them.
+After that, the days were packed with talks across different tracks and COSIs. I attended sessions from:
+* GenComp (Comparative Genomics)
+* DREAM 
+* BOSC (Bioinformatics Open Source Conference)
+* And MICROBIOME, which had some especially interesting talks on Tuesday and Thursday
+
+There was a lot to take in—talks ranged from methods development to applications in systems biology, single-cell data, and microbiome analysis. One of the talks that really stood out to me was James Zou’s keynote, where he introduced the idea of a virtual AI lab. He talked about how AI agents and language models are starting to help with experiment planning, literature synthesis, and even idea generation. It felt like a sneak peek into how computational biology might look just a few years from now.
+
+Outside the talks, the poster sessions and coffee breaks were great for meeting people. I had lots of interesting conversations, some about research, others just about navigating PhD life or sharing career advice. Chatting with poster presenters also helped me learn about tools and approaches I hadn’t seen before. Those casual exchanges were honestly one of the best parts of the week.
+
+The conference wrapped up with a conversation with David Baker, who shared his insights on protein design and creative science, followed by a final keynote from Fabian Theis. His talk focused on atlas-scale data integration and the Human Cell Atlas, a huge and ongoing effort to map cell types across tissues and conditions. It was a powerful reminder of how large-scale collaboration can really push the field forward.
+
+![David Baker on the screen on the left, and me with my poster on the right](/img/2025/2025-08-25-TA4.png)
+
+## Exploring Liverpool
+In between conference sessions, I made sure to explore a bit of Liverpool. The dockside area near the venue was lovely to walk around—full of history, great views of the Mersey, and a surprisingly peaceful vibe despite all the conference hustle. 
+
+![John Lennon Peace Monument on the left, and the Wheel of Liverpool on the right](/img/2025/2025-08-25-TA5.png)
+
+---
+
+## Final Thoughts
+ISMB 2025 was a really full and energizing week. Between leading a tutorial, hearing inspiring talks, and connecting with scientists from all over, I came away with lots of new ideas and a deeper appreciation for the community we're part of.
+I’m super grateful to OBF for supporting my attendance. It made it possible for me to not only learn from the best in the field but also contribute something back through our tutorial. I'm excited to take these experiences into my own research and hopefully return to ISMB again in the future.
+
+---