WBConfCall 2016.12.15-Agenda and Minutes

Agenda

Help Desk

• Thank you to everyone who helped answer queries.
  • Seems like the BLAST/BLAT server is back up and running.

AGR

• Portal implementation working groups
  • Google doc (see email for link)
  • Curators / subject-matter-experts needed for each group (but not too many!)
• Orthology
  • Pressure from the Orthology WG for WB to move to a once-per-year update cycle for gene models. What do people think?

New Starter

• Faye Rodgers has recently joined WormBase @ Sanger to work with parasites

Minutes

Future Conference Calls

• Will switch to using GoToMeeting
  • There will be local numbers for the calls, and people can dial in with their computer
  • Please contact Raymond if you have any problems with this.

Help Desk Issues

• All caught up, but some question about whether or not a header for the BLAST/BLAT input is absolutely required
• Doesn't seem to be, but we're not sure what exactly was fixed, then to make it work again

WS258 Upload and Build

• Models will be made available tomorrow, December 16th
• Upload next month, citace will upload January 13th

AGR

Portal

• Aim to have portal in place by March 7th, the date of the SAB meeting
• More discussion about this on the AGR leadership call tomorrow

Orthology Working Group

• Paul T. - not enough compute resources to do PANTHER builds more than once a year
• Could WB move to a once-a-year gene model update to coincide with this schedule?
• Is there a way around this bottleneck for AGR, e.g. farm out the compute resources?
• Suggest meeting between Kevin, Paul T., Paul S., Paul K. to discuss this
• Would be nice not to have to downgrade release of WB gene models
• Want to keep orthology pipeline in place for nematodes

BD2K

• Who from WB is involved?
  • Lincoln attended all-hands meeting last week
  • May need to take a more active role here
  • Could provide compelling use cases to make sure our, and users, needs are addressed
  • Make AGR portal one of the use cases
  • Three existing Commons:
    • NCI Commons
    • Trans-NIH Commons
    • Genome Commons

New Member of WormBase Parasite Team

• Welcome, Faye!