Biodiversity Cell Atlas Meeting

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About

Cells are the fundamental units of life – underlying cooperative functions in multicellular organisms and complex temporal life cycles in microbial eukaryotes. In recent years, the rapid advance in single-cell genomics technologies, combined with the growing availability of whole-genome sequences, opened up the opportunity to systematically map cell types in diverse organisms.

The goal of the Biodiversity Cell Atlas is to articulate a community effort to build whole-organism cell atlases across the diversity of life, working in a phylogenetically informed way, supported by high-quality genomes, and using shared standards that make comparisons across diversity possible. This coordinated effort should boost our understanding the evolution and diversity of life at cellular resolution: from gene regulatory programs, through cell type molecular profiles, to biological interactions between species.

To make this possible, this first meeting will bring together leading experts in biodiversity genomics, in model organism cell atlas initiatives, and in comparative single-cell genomics. We will discuss the opportunities and challenges ahead for reconstructing the cell type tree of life.

Organizers

Arnau Sebé-Pedrós (Centre for Genomic Regulation)
Roderic Guigó (Centre for Genomic Regulation)
Mara Lawniczak (Wellcome Sanger Institute)
Detlev Arendt (European Molecular Biology Laboratory)
Amos Tanay (Weizmann Institute of Science)
Irene Papatheodorou (EMBL's European Bioinformatics Institute)

Supported by

Program

May 15th, 2023

08h30 Registration

09h15 Welcome & Organizers Introduction to the Biodiversity Cell Atlas initiative

Session 1: Considerations towards a BCA from the perspective of large-scale cell atlasing projects

Chair: Amos Tanay

09h30 Stein Aerts (VIB Leuven) - The Fly Cell Atlas
09h40 Sarah Teichmann (Wellcome Sanger Institute) - Cell atlasing ecology and biology
09h50 Aviv Regev (Broad Institute) - TBD
10h00 Seung Yon Rhee (Carnegie Institution) - The Plant Cell Atlas
10h10 Discussion and questions

10h25 Coffee break

Session 2: Considerations towards a BCA from the perspective of biodiversity genomics projects

Chair: Heather Marlow

10h55 Harris Lewin (UC Davis) - The Earth Biogenome Project
11h05 Mark Blaxter (Wellcome Sanger Institute) - Single-cell sequence locally, think globally
11h15 Sadye Paez (Rockefeller University) - Ethical and equitable considerations for the Biodiversity Cell Atlas
11h25 Mara Lawniczak (Wellcome Sanger Institute) - TBD
11h35 Discussion and questions

Session 3: Comparative study of cell type diversity and evolution

Chair: Arnau Sebe-Pedros

11h50 Detlev Arendt (EMBL) - Animal diversity and cell type evolution
12h00 Tom Richards (Oxford University) - Using atlas approaches to understand protist interactions
12h10 Ulrich Technau (Vienna University) - Cnidarian developmental cell atlases
12h20 Ina Arnone (Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn) - Sea urching developmental single-cell atlas
12h30 Heather Marlow (Chicago University) - Comparative Analysis of Cell Identity Networks
12h40 Jake Musser (Yale University) - Profiling cellular diversity in sponges informs animal cell type and nervous system evolution
12h50 Discussion and questions

Sponsor talk

13h05 Agnieszka Ciesielska (10x Genomics) - Discover the future of biology

13h15 Lunch

Session 4: Experimental challenges of the BCA

Chair: Mara Lawniczak

14h30 Allon Klein (Harvard University) - Single-cell transcriptomics: general considerations for the Biodiversity Cell Atlas
14h40 Nikolaus Rajewsky (MDC) - Spatial Omics in 3D
14h50 Holger Heyn (CNAG-CRG) - Benchmarking single-cell genomics technologies
15h00 Jordi Solana (Oxford Brookes University) - Cell fixation strategies for non-model organism scRNA-seq profiling
15h10 Hanh Vu (EMBL) - Soft and squishy isn't always easy: towards high-quality single-nucleus transcriptomic atlases of different planarian species
15h20 Susana Coelho (MPI Tübingen) - Brown algae cell atlas - Challenges of single-cell genomics with cell walls
15h30 Lauren Saunders (DFKZ) - Opportunities and challenges for quantifying single cells with individual animal resolution
15h40 Arnau Sebe-Pedros (CRG) - Single-cell genomics sampling from the wild with minimal infrastructure
15h50 Discussion and questions

16h05 Coffee break

Session 5: Data analysis and integration for the BCA

Chair: Detlev Arendt

16h35 Amos Tanay (Weizmann Institute of Science) - Comparative single-cell data analysis: integrating and standardizing the Biodiversity Cell Atlas
16h45 Yuyao Song (EBI) - Single Cell Expression Atlas: computational analyses across species
16h55 Jaime Huerta-Cepas (CBGP) - Large-scale comparative genomics for the Biodiversity Cell Atlas
17h05 Roderic Guigó (CRG) - The impact of partial genome annotations for comparative single-cell analyses
17h15 Discussion and questions

Session 6: Peripheral vision - applications of the BCA

Chair: Roderic Guigo

17h30 Mafalda Dias/Jonathan Frazer (CRG) - Leveraging genetic variation across evolutionary timescales
17h40 Manuel Irimia (CRG) - Comparative analysis of gene expession
17h50 Miki Ebisuya (EMBL) - A stem cell zoo reveals species-specific biophysical parameters
18h00 Casey Dunn (Yale University) - The unification of phylogenetics, population biology, and developmental cell lineages: same tree, different scales

Registration

Registration is now CLOSED

Link to the live streaming of the event