Genome Annotation Workshop 2026
The Genome Annotation Workshop is designed to provide scientists with a comprehensive overview of eukaryotic genome annotation approaches.
The value of a genome assembly hinges on its annotation quality. However, structural annotation remains challenging due to variability in genome size, complexity, and the diversity and quality of supporting data.
Accurate annotation is essential for downstream analyses — variation detection, comparative genomics, functional genomics, systems biology, genome editing, and synthetic biology all rely on accurate gene models.
The Earlham Institute has developed a number of tools and pipelines to support high-quality annotation, including:
Both were foundational in the wheat genome annotation by the IWGSC (PMID: 30115783).
These pipelines integrate Mikado and Portcullis along with evidence-guided prediction tools to produce high-quality annotations.
We have used them to support projects across plants, fungi, insects, protists, and fish within consortia such as the European Reference Genome Atlas (ERGA) and Darwin Tree of Life.
Advanced PhD students and post-doctoral researchers who are undertaking projects involving annotating a genome assembly and looking to improve your awareness of different approaches and pipelines.
You are expected to have experience with using the command line, and should be comfortable using the functions covered in the Software Carpentry lesson, The Unix Shell. We suggest you refresh your memory of these lessons if needed.
Participation: Open to all