The importance of being uncertain when analyzing high throughput sequencing data

Hello CGIL,    

We are happy to have Dr. Gregory Gloor, from Western University, presenting for us on Friday, October 24th, 2025. The seminar will begin at 1:30 PM EDT/EST on the virtual platform Microsoft Teams. The presentation title is: “The importance of being uncertain when analyzing high throughput sequencing data”  

Speaker Biography: Dr. Gloor completed a PhD in Biochemistry at Western University (1998) where he studied bacteriophage Mu with Dr. George Chaconas, and contributed to our understanding of in-vitro and in-vivo transposition. He moved to University of Wisconsin-Madison to work with Dr. Bill Engels on Drosophila P-element transposition and later DNA repair.  As a PDF and a junior faculty member at Memorial University in Newfoundland he measured the frequency and extent of DNA repair in the fruit fly, Drosophila. From this, he was the first to demonstrate that gene targeting worked in intact animal somatic cells and identified and described what is now a standard model for DNA repair in animals. 

He moved back to Western in 1983 where as a mid-career faculty member working on protein evolution, he described a bioinformatic approach that dramatically improved the initial predictions needed for protein structure prediction termed the Average Product Correction. This was used as the initial step in virtually all protein structure prediction tools until recently, and only recently been superseded by AI-based methods. Working with Dr. David Edgell, these methods have been used to design better systems for genome engineering. 

He then went on to develop wet-lab, bioinformatic and statistical approaches to examine human and other microbiomes. His methods, especially the bioinformatic approaches, are used by thousands of researchers worldwide and have influenced multiple fields of study as diverse as metabolomics, transcriptomics, metagenomics and microbiome analysis. His methods were instrumental in demonstrating that the vaginal microbiome of women with bacterial vaginosis could be subdivided into an aggressive and a more benign types of BV. He has used these approaches to develop machine learning methods for CRISPR-based prediction tools. 

Dr. Gloor has over 150 peer-reviewed papers, four Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher awards, and an h-index of 65, he has made major contributions across bioinformatics, microbiome analysis, and protein evolution. He has held editorial roles at Microbiome and Nucleic Acids Research Genomics and Bioinformatics and chaired the CIHR Genomics Panel for over seven years. 

Information to attend: To join this seminar, please ensure you have downloaded the Microsoft Teams application to your computer or join the meeting online using the web browser version of Microsoft Teams. Please join the meeting with your microphone on mute and the camera turned off. After the presentation, you can unmute the microphone, and optionally turn on the camera, if you wish to ask a question. Alternatively, if you wish to pose your question in the chat function, the presenter will answer questions made through the chat.    

Teams link to attend:    https://teams.microsoft.com/dl/launcher/launcher.html?url=%2F_%23%2Fl%2Fmeetup-join%2F19%3Ameeting_NWNjOGExOWItNDQ5YS00NTg0LTg0NmYtZWU0ZTU4M2E3N2U2%40thread.v2%2F0%3Fcontext%3D%257b%2522Tid%2522%253a%2522be62a12b-2cad-49a1-a5fa-85f4f3156a7d%2522%252c%2522Oid%2522%253a%2522522551ba-0e93-4d61-8464-d782a9e7306d%2522%257d%26anon%3Dtrue&type=meetup-join&deeplinkId=130e0409-9815-48d8-9793-2beed5cf971d&directDl=true&msLaunch=true&enableMobilePage=true&suppressPrompt=true

 

*Recordings of previous CGIL seminars are available at: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAQ_5WCTMRQ6Gs35yROqGIQ/featured     

 

Looking forward to seeing everyone there!     

Gabby Condello and Julia Rodrigues.