Chaoran Chen

@chaoranchen.de

Scientific software engineer at ETH Zurich, founder of GenSpectrum.org, co-founder of Pathoplexus.org, always looking for recommendations for board games 🎲 and books 📚

> An alternative to GISAID has been gaining ground. In 2024, Chen, Stadler, and others launched Pathoplexus, a platform that also seeks to protect the interests of those uploading sequences but aims to allow data to be shared more freely. And if you love podcasts: open.spotify.com/episode/0wrp...

144 - micro binfie Pathoplexus part 1

open.spotify.com

Kai Kupferschmidt@kakape.bsky.social · 8mo ago

“[P]utting data into GISAID is like dropping it in a mail slot in an unmarked building,” says @colincarlson.bsky.social. “It’s wonderful that there’s so much cool stuff in that building. It would be great if we knew who owned it, or who paid for it, or what they plan to do with it.” #IDsky 🧪

“[P]utting data into GISAID is like dropping it in a mail slot in an unmarked building,” says @colincarlson.bsky.social. “It’s wonderful that there’s so much cool stuff in that building. It would be great if we knew who owned it, or who paid for it, or what they plan to do with it.” #IDsky 🧪

Fresh conflicts erupt around giant database for flu and COVID-19 sequences

Critics say “autocratic” behavior by GISAID could hamper response to a future pandemic

science.org

On Oct 1, 2025, GISAID informed us that they had ended updates to the flat file of SARS-CoV-2 genomic sequences and associated metadata that we had used to update Nextstrain analyses since Feb 2020. GISAID's stated rationale was that their "resources are limited". 1/5

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And now NextStrain as well. Next up, will GISAID start charging open-source community tools to have access? That would completely shaft users who contributed to GISAID, where we never agreed to that and assumed GISAID would be good custodians of the data we contributed. They're not.

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Kristian G. Andersen@kgandersen.bsky.social · last yr.

You might be wondering why we haven't updated outbreak.info for months. Well, the reason is that GISAID cut our access in January - as they did others. Without telling us. After a ♾️ back and forth, that is now permanent. More on that soon - and why GISAID should not be trusted with critical data.

Finally, CoV-Spectrum is meeting trees 🌳 – this week, we released a new feature to browse the SARS-CoV-2 UShER tree on CoV-Spectrum. With the new feature, you can see a subtree of your variant of interest. 1/4

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You might be wondering why we haven't updated outbreak.info for months. Well, the reason is that GISAID cut our access in January - as they did others. Without telling us. After a ♾️ back and forth, that is now permanent. More on that soon - and why GISAID should not be trusted with critical data.

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📢Today Pathoplexus announces the inclusion of 2 new viral pathogens: RSV (A & B) and HMPV. These respiratory viruses cause a serious health burden, particularly in infants & the vulnerable, & Pathoplexus aims to support sequence sharing to improve understanding & response. 1/4

Screenshot of the homepage of Pathoplexus, showing tiles to navigate to the supported pathogens CCHF, Ebola Sudan, Ebola Zaire, HMPV, Mpox, RSV-A, RSV-B, and West Nile virus.

The SIB Swiss Institute of #Bioinformatics is on Bluesky! We’re a non-profit organization dedicated to biological & biomedical #dataScience, supporting research & innovation. Follow us for updates on personalized health, biodiversity, pathogens, open science and more. Visit us at sib.swiss

SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics | Data scientists for life

As a leading organization in biological and biomedical data science, SIB maximizes scientific impact through FAIR data, biodata resources, and innovation.

sib.swiss

Today I have resigned from my position as a Data Editor at Proceedings B. I believe the journal does great work, but it feels wrong to voluntarily spend my time holding authors to account on behalf of the Royal Society, while the Society refuses to hold its own Fellows to account.