For the fourth time in a row, The Institute of Molecular Genetics and Genetic Engineering (IMGGE) of the University of Belgrade organized the Belgrade Bioinformatics Conference (BelBI) from 19-23 June, which our Center was one of the co-organizers. 

Center’s Project Manager, Dr. Branislava Gemović, had several prominent roles within this year’s BelBI, where among the most significant ones was the panel organized by the Center on the topic of Serbia’s resources for storage and analyses of genetic data, which Dr. Gemović was the moderator of. 

The participants of the panel were the director of the Center Jelena Bojović, Head of the group for quality of services and development of artificial intelligence, Office for Information Technologies, and e-Government Bogdan Stešević, Dr. Mirjana Novković from the Institute of Molecular Genetics and Genetic Engineering and Dušan Lazić from the Faculty of Biology, University of Belgrade. Head of Strategic Alliances, Drug Discovery AI, EMEA at NVIDIA David Ruau joined the panel online and complemented this amazing discussion.  

Many topics were discussed, and among other things, an overview of the current resources for data storage and analysis in Serbia and resources managed by the Office for Information Technologies and e-Government, were determined. As an important part of the panel, participants were discussing how and who can use these resources for genetic data, what services are involved and why are they important. Also, examples of national genetic data platforms using the NVIDIA supercomputer for analysis were presented. The participants also spoke about the differences between GPU and CPU resources for analyses of genetic and other biomedical data and instructed everyone present about the role, use and value of the Genetic and Biomedical Data Registry. 

During the second part of the panel, Dr. Gemović had the opportunity to speak with Dr. Branka Zukić from IMGGE and Dr. Igor Petković from the Roche, and they participated in a discussion as an example of establishing a successful public-private partnership.  

The BelBI conference aims to gather and encourage contact between researchers, experts, and students from all over the world who are interested in sharing their knowledge, exchange their ideas and experiences in related fields, as well as discuss the latest achievements in the field of bioinformatics and computational biology. More about the BelBI conference can be found at the link HERE.