guest post from Susanne Cardwell
Administrative Coordinator
Bioinformatics Platform Applied Computational Genomics Course


Paul Gordon, bioinformatics specialist with the Sun Center of Excellence for Visual Genomics, recently attended the Hackathon 2010, at the University of Tokyo. The objective of the Hackathon 2010 was to define technologies and standards for the global life sciences community for the next generation of web technologies often call the Semantic Web.

There were approximately 40-50 participants, and Paul was representing the Genome Canada Bioinformatics Platform. Several Canadians in attendance were some of the pioneers in Semantic Web Technologies for the Life Sciences. 

Bio Hackathon 2010 was about creating a critical mass of data providers providing the same format of information for the purpose of standardization. Standardization allows for people to ask queries or questions that require information from multiple databases. A major aim of the meeting was to educate the developers on some of the semantic web technologies, which include RDF, Sparql, and Semantic Web Services. Paul Gordon and others enlightened the participants about these technologies, how to create queries using these technologies, and use case development.

Another major aim of the meeting was the writing of computer code. Gordon focused on making it easier to use these technologies over existing databases.

The Hackathon lasted 5 days, and by the end a set of guidelines for standardizing database references was agreed upon, and a much larger community of developers now have the knowledge required to put their data on the Semantic Web. This will mean that biologists can ask more sophisticated biological research questions over distributed databases.

The University of Tokyo is a very prestigious establishment, according to Gordon. He said that Tokyo is very large, but well organized and easy to get around, wtih lots of historical and modern sites to see. For instance, he went to see a thousand year old temple but also a modern art museum.
He enjoyed the Japanese food, and says that there is more to Japanese food than just sushi. Yakitori, which is barbecued food on skewers, and Kushiage, which is deep fried kabobs, were some of his favorite Japanese delicacies.

You can learn more from the BioHackathon 2010 website http://hackathon3.dbcls.jp  

Here is a sample from the BioHackaton presentations: