[Open-bio-l] OBF Newsletter November 2025

[Bastian Greshake]

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OBF Newsletter November 2025
<https://github.com/OBF/newsletter/blob/master/newsletters/2025-11.md#obf-newsletter-november-2025>

TL;DR: Recapping BOSC 2025, preparing for GSoC 2026, OBF Event awards, new
website, and community news!

In longer form:
OBF News
<https://github.com/OBF/newsletter/blob/master/newsletters/2025-11.md#obf-news>
BOSC news
<https://github.com/OBF/newsletter/blob/master/newsletters/2025-11.md#bosc-news>
BOSC 2025
<https://github.com/OBF/newsletter/blob/master/newsletters/2025-11.md#bosc-2025>

The 2025 edition of our Bioinformatics Open Source Conference
<https://www.open-bio.org/events/bosc-2025/> (July 21-22, 2025 as part of
ISMB/ECCB 2025 in Liverpool, UK and online) was a great success, attracting
at its peak around 280 in-person attendees. Over two days, BOSC included
two keynote addresses, a thought-provoking panel discussion, and plenty of
talks and posters around open science, open source, and open data in
bioinformatics. This year, our annual CollaborationFest was also part of
ISMB/ECCB
<https://www.open-bio.org/events/bosc-2025/ismb-collaborationfest-2025/>,
with about 60 people participating to contribute to open source projects.

The organising committee wrote a report that is now available on F1000
Research <https://f1000research.com/articles/14-887>, providing some deeper
insights and reflections on BOSC & CollaborationFest.

All the videos of the BOSC talks, including the keynotes, have now been
released as well. You can watch them on our YouTube channel
<https://www.youtube.com/@OBFBOSC/videos> as well as find direct links in
our BOSC 2025 schedule page
<https://www.open-bio.org/events/bosc-2025/bosc-2025-schedule/>.
BOSC 2026: Save the date
<https://github.com/OBF/newsletter/blob/master/newsletters/2025-11.md#bosc-2026-save-the-date>

In 2026, BOSC will again happen as part of the ISMB conference, taking
place on two days between 13–16 July 2026 in Washington, DC, USA.

To keep up with BOSC news, please follow us on LinkedIn
<https://www.linkedin.com/groups/14344023/>, Bluesky
<https://bsky.app/profile/bosc.bsky.social>, Mastodon
<https://genomic.social/@BOSC>, and Slack
<https://join.slack.com/t/obf-bosc/shared_invite/zt-n5ur1gsj-z2C~69_4lYTFPg5tbWA8Ew>!
(We are no longer on Twitter/X; find out why
<https://www.open-bio.org/2023/11/20/leaving-x/>.)
OBF Event Fellowships
<https://github.com/OBF/newsletter/blob/master/newsletters/2025-11.md#obf-event-fellowships>

Our event fellowship, which is aimed at increasing diverse participation
and representation at events promoting open science practices around
bioinformatics, continues. So far, we supported 9 people in 2025, including
2 people in attending BOSC.

*Next deadline: December 1, 2025*

The current application period for the OBF Event Fellowship lasts until
December 1, 2025, so there is still time to get your application submitted
<https://forms.gle/vDFTxT3uJwazQdSdA>.

These fellowships are ideal to support your virtual or in-person
participation in conferences related to open source bioinformatics or open
science (in-person or virtual), and potentially additional expenses such as
travel, lodging, childcare for the duration of the event, small hardware
(e.g. a headset or webcam), or high-speed internet.

You can read more about applying for an OBF Event Fellowship on our blog
<https://www.open-bio.org/2025/10/07/event-fellowship-2025-3/>, where we
also share the experiences of past awardees
<https://www.open-bio.org/category/travel-fellowship/event-fellowship/>.
GSoC 2026 Call For Projects & co-admins
<https://github.com/OBF/newsletter/blob/master/newsletters/2025-11.md#gsoc-2026-call-for-projects--co-admins>

The OBF is planning to participate in Google Summer of Code (GSoC) 2026 and
invites community members to contribute project ideas, volunteer as
mentors, or serve as co-administrators.

The official GSoC 2026 timeline has not yet been released. Based on
previous years, the project submission phase is expected to begin in
January and conclude in February. For reference, details of previous
successful OBF projects can be found here: OBF at GSoC 2022
<https://summerofcode.withgoogle.com/programs/2022/organizations/>

If you are interested in proposing a project, mentoring, or assisting with
administration, please send your project ideas or expressions of interest
to:

   - Email: obf-gsoc-mentors at googlegroups.com
   - Primary Admin: Sarthak Sehgal (sarthaksehgal00 at gmail.com)

A new OBF website
<https://github.com/OBF/newsletter/blob/master/newsletters/2025-11.md#a-new-obf-website>

Earlier this year, the OBF launched a new website
<https://www.open-bio.org/posts/2025-03-04-new-website/>. As part of this
move, our website is now also archived through the Rogue Scholar
<https://www.open-bio.org/posts/2025-04-02-archiving-obf-posts/>, which
ensures that the blog posts will remain part of the long-term scientific
record. It also means that our blog posts now have their own citeable DOI
that you can find on Rogue Scholar
<https://rogue-scholar.org/search?q=metadata.creators.person_or_org.name%3A%22Open%20Bioinformatics%20Foundation%22&l=list&p=1&s=10&sort=newest>
!
Community updates
<https://github.com/OBF/newsletter/blob/master/newsletters/2025-11.md#community-updates>
Layoffs at GigaScience
<https://github.com/OBF/newsletter/blob/master/newsletters/2025-11.md#layoffs-at-gigascience>

The journal GigaScience has been a mainstay in the OBF/BOSC space for 15
years. Beyond being a regular sponsor of BOSCs, the GigaScience team have
been a steady presence at BOSCs, from talks and posters to organising
birthday parties. As such, the recent news of GigaScience’s owners, BGI,
laying off the entire editorial, software and curation team on short
notice, has filled us with both surprise and deep disappointment.

The larger OBF/BOSC community has written a letter to express their
concerns and disappointment
<https://www.open-bio.org/2025/09/30/2025-09-30-gigascience/>, while
reflecting on all the achievements.

If you would like to sign this letter as well, you can do so by making a
pull request here
<https://github.com/OBF/OBF.github.io/edit/main/content/posts/2025-09-30-gigascience.md>
.
openSNP has shut down
<https://github.com/OBF/newsletter/blob/master/newsletters/2025-11.md#opensnp-has-shut-down>

openSNP, the open-source/data platform that allowed donating human
genotyping data from 23andMe et al. into the public domain, has shut down
in April after operating for 14 years. The team decided to take this step
over concerns how the current political forces in the USA could abuse such
an open data resource. openSNP co-founder (and OBF board member) Bastian
Greshake Tzovaras wrote about his reflections and the reasoning for
shutting down now <https://tzovar.as/sunsetting-opensnp/>.
FOSDEM26, now with Bioinformatics and Computational biology
<https://github.com/OBF/newsletter/blob/master/newsletters/2025-11.md#fosdem26-now-with-bioinformatics-and-computational-biology>

If you are interested in hanging out with Free/Libre/Open
source/hardware/culture folk in Brussels on 31st Jan - 1st Feb 2026, then
why not submit a talk about what you develop/do/have experienced with open
source in bioinformatics for the first ever Bioinformatics and
Computational biology DevRoom at FOSDEM26.

TL;DR: submit a 5,10, or 20 minute talk that is bio/med + open source
related via FOSDEM pretalx, and remember to select ‘Bioinformatics and
Computational Biology’ from the ‘Track’ field. Deadline is 30th November
2025.

FOSDEM is (probably) the biggest gathering of open source folk - it is a
free conference held at Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) over the first
weekend of February. It attracts thousands of hackers, open
software/hardware enthusiasts, makers, and tech/industry people, and like
BOSC, has an exceptional culture of inclusivity and commitment to diversity.

Read the full CFP <https://fosdem-bioinformatics.github.io/cfp.html>, and
join us over at matrix.org <https://matrix.to/#/#fosdembioinformatics> or
via email at https://framagroupes.org/sympa/info/bioinfo-fosdem
Your content needed for the next issue!
<https://github.com/OBF/newsletter/blob/master/newsletters/2025-11.md#your-content-needed-for-the-next-issue>
Tell us about the things that catch your attention in the open source
bioinformatics world! If you have an exciting project update, request for
feedback, or interesting link, feel free to share it with us on GitHub
<https://github.com/OBF/newsletter/issues/46>, or contact Bastian Greshake
Tzovaras (Mastodon: @gedankenstuecke at scholar.social
<https://scholar.social/@gedankenstuecke>, Email: bgreshake at gmail.com
<bgreshake at proton.me>) if you're not sure whether or not your content is
suitable for our newsletter. We're looking for content that's primarily
open source / science related.
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