Work Package 4 – Bioinformatics

Work Package leader: Tomas Klingström, Sveriges Lantbruksuniversitet, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Sweden, tomas.klingstrom@slu.se

 

The B3Africa technical platform – the eB3kit – will draw on the experience and lessons learned from the development of the eBiokit, a bioinformatics portal created in collaboration with (among others) the Pan-African Bioinformatics Network for the Human Heredity and Health in Africa (H3Africa) initiative, H3ABioNet.

The eBiokit is made to allow researchers to conduct bioinformatics-based research without having access to a reliable Internet connection. The bioinformatics tool set has increased in size over time and may overwhelm an inexperienced bioinformatician.

Currently, the eBiokit runs a combination of databases, bioinformatics tools in the Galaxy workflow management system, and separate command line tools. Working in Galaxy is much easier for researchers with limited experience in programming or executing command line scripts, and we have decided to integrate all bioinformatics tools in the eB3kit bioinformatics package into Galaxy.

The tools used in the eB3kit will be based on the current Galaxy implementation of the eBiokit, commonly used tools in the eBiokit that can be integrated into Galaxy, and a survey among researchers on current needs. In the future, the two forks will support each other: the eB3kit serves as a vehicle for the development of the Galaxy-based component of the eBiokit, while the eBiokit serves as a test bed for new tools that may be implemented in Galaxy.