UPDATE: The deadline for the call has been extended until the 30th June.

Our WHO-sponsored series of articles describing biodiversity data relevant to vector-borne diseases has now been published in GigaByte . This special issue presents a wide variety of data relating to the presence, spread, and diversity of organisms that are transmitting viruses, bacteria and parasites to humans.

UPDATE: GigaByte and GBIF webinar video added below.

The first comprehensive mobile genome analysis application, iGenomics, is now available for download and use on an iOS smartphone . By pairing an smartphone with a handheld DNA sequencer, users will be able to create a mobile genetics laboratory, reminiscent of the Star Trek’s “tricorder”. Just published is an article presenting  iGenomics, the first DNA sequencing toolkit that can run on a smartphone.

Scientists in Cambodia, who are supported by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, and the Bill &

Not only epidemics themselves come in waves, also research into emerging infectious diseases has ups and downs, a Gigascience paper published today reports. The authors at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev analysed more than 35 million papers and explored research (scientometric trends) related to nine different infectious diseases.

With ongoing the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic providing us with unprecedented insight into the progression of a disease outbreak, and unprecedented time in the lock down to turn us all into armchair epidemiologists. This includes near real-time sharing and analysis of genomics data through platforms like nextstrain, and of ways to view the infection, mortality and testing statistics via a growing number of online dashboards.

With much of the GigaScience team spanning the Hong Kong-Shenzhen border and now confined to remote working, the current 2019-novel coronavirus outbreak has been particularly disruptive and close to home.

Giardia, a protozoan parasite which people typically pick up through drinking infected water or contaminated food, can cause diarrhoea and stomach pains.

The current global panic about Zika is a “data gap” issue: a vacuum of information due to gaps in understanding of its spread and pathogenesis , and gaps in sharing the research data and specimens that will enable the global research community to keep one step ahead of the disease spread.