BioHackathon 2026

Event Summary

The Second International BioHackathon of BITS 2026 successfully took place in Padova on May 26–27, 2026, bringing together students and early-career researchers from different institutions and backgrounds to tackle the challenge of reverse engineering biological networks from omics data.

The initiative combined a preparatory webinar series with a two-day hands-on competition, where participants worked in interdisciplinary teams on transcriptomic and metagenomic datasets, applying computational methods for biological network inference.

The event was organized by Young InfoLife, RSG-Italy, and BITS, with computational support provided by the HPC4AI infrastructure.

Structure of the initiative

The BioHackathon will be preceded by a series of five introductory webinars, aimed at guiding participants from the biological context and omics data generation process to the computational methods used for network inference.

These webinars are conceived as accessible, community-oriented events, intended to provide participants with the conceptual foundations needed before the practical team-based challenge.

All webinars will be streamed live on the Young InfoLife YouTube channel and will remain available afterward for asynchronous viewing:

Live streaming: Young InfoLife YouTube channel

Results

We would like to congratulate all participants for the quality of their work and collaborative spirit throughout the competition.

🏆 Winning Team

Group 2

• Rida Hayat
• Alessandro Leone
• Margherita Morlacchi
• Dhwani Solanki

🌟 Honorable Mention – Best Performing Team in Reverse Engineering of a Bacterial Interaction Network

Group 5

• Aaron Costa
• Matteo Meneghin
• Matteo Spatafora
• Karla Alejandra Ruiz Ceja

🌟 Honorable Mention – Best Performing Team in Reverse Engineering of a Gene Regulatory Network

Group 2

• Rida Hayat
• Alessandro Leone
• Margherita Morlacchi
• Dhwani Solanki

Webinar series

Webinar 1 — Regulatory Networks: from biology to computational models

Speakers: Giulia Lencioni & Riccardo Aucello
Date: 30 March 2026, 11:30 CET

Goal: Understanding what we want to reconstruct and why it is difficult.

Topics:

• The central dogma of molecular biology and regulatory mechanisms
• Transcription and inhibition
• The “large p, small n” problem in omics data
• What Gene Regulatory Networks (GRNs) are
• Example of a small real regulatory network (e.g. the lac operon in E. coli)

Webinar 2 — Transcriptomic data analysis

Speakers: Davide Bressan & Luca Alessandrì
Date: 8 April 2026, 11:30 CET

Goal: Preparing a transcriptomic dataset for network analysis.

Topics:

• Steady-state vs time-series data
• Perturbation experiments: knock-out vs knock-down
• Noise handling and normalization
• Log transformation
• Exploratory data analysis: PCA and clustering

Webinar 3 — Reverse engineering methods for transcriptomic networks

Speakers: Elisabetta Sciacca & Antonio Collesei
Date: 15 April 2026, 11:30 CET

Goal: Exploring the main methodological approaches to transcriptomic network inference.

Topics:

• Correlation-based methods
• Mutual information methods
• Regression-based approaches
• Dynamical models and ODEs for temporal data
• Strengths and limitations of each strategy
• Prediction versus gold standard
• Performance metrics: precision-recall, AUROC, and why accuracy is often insufficient

Webinar 4 — Metagenomics data analysis

Speakers: Grete Privitera & Dora Tortarolo
Date: 23 April 2026, 11:30 CET

Topics:

• Bacteria: roles and relevance
• Microbiota vs microbiome
• Sequencing-based microbiota profiling:
  • metagenomics (WGS)
  • metataxonomics (16S)
  • metatranscriptomics
• 16S preprocessing pipeline: from reads to count table
• Post-processing analysis

Webinar 5 — Reverse engineering methods for metagenomics networks

Speakers: Giacomo Baruzzo & Piero Mariotto
Date: 30 April 2026, 11:30 CET

Topics:

• Characteristics and biases of 16S count tables
• 16S preprocessing:
  • filtering (e.g. prevalence)
  • normalization (e.g. GMPR)
  • transformation (e.g. CLR)
  • imputation (e.g. scImpute)
• Reverse engineering of bacterial interaction networks from 16S data
• Methods such as:
  • correlation / partial correlation
  • SPIEC-EASI
  • SPRING

The BioHackathon contest

During the contest, participants will be divided into heterogeneous working groups, encouraging interaction across institutions, disciplines, and levels of expertise.

The activity is intended not only as a competition, but also as an opportunity for peer learning and interdisciplinary collaboration among participants coming from biology, bioinformatics, statistics, data science, and related fields.

Venue

The BioHackathon was hosted at:

HUB – Università degli Studi di Padova
Via Niccolò Tommaseo 59, 35131 Padova, Italy

The competition took place over two half-days:

• 26 May 2026 (14:30–18:30)
• 27 May 2026 (08:30–12:30)

A networking aperitivo was held on the evening of May 26, offering participants an opportunity to meet and exchange ideas in an informal setting.

A social event with aperitivo is also planned for the evening of 26 May 2026, open to all participants and organizers.

Registration

Participation in both the preparatory webinar series and the BioHackathon requires prior registration.

Webinar mailing list registration

15 March 2026 – 15 April 2026
👉 Register for the webinar series

BioHackathon registration

9 April 2026 – 15 May 2026
👉 Register for the BioHackathon

Computational resources

The event will benefit from the support of the HPC4AI infrastructure of the University of Turin, which will provide computational resources and execution environments.

Organizers

The initiative is organized through the collaboration of several communities and institutions, including:

• RSG-Italy
• InfoLife – CINI National Laboratory for Life Sciences
• Young BITS

BioHackathon Coordinators

• Simone Pernice — University of Turin, Young InfoLife
• Giacomo Baruzzo — University of Padova, Young InfoLife
• Roberto Pagliarini — University of Udine, Young InfoLife
• Giulia Cesaro — University of Padova, RSG-Italy / Young InfoLife
• Luca Alessandri — University of Turin, Young InfoLife

Webinar Speakers

• Giulia Lencioni — Fondazione Pisana per la Scienza
• Riccardo Aucello
• Davide Bressan — University of Trento
• Luca Alessandrì — University of Turin
• Elisabetta Sciacca — Humanitas University
• Antonio Collesei — Istituto Oncologico Veneto
• Grete Francesca Privitera — University of Catania
• Dora Tortarolo — University of Turin
• Giacomo Baruzzo — University of Padova
• Piero Mariotto — University of Padova

Communication, media, and fundraising

• Giulia Cesaro — Social Media Manager, Funding
• Aldo Pastore — Social Media Manager
• Laura Veschetti — Social Media Manager, Funding
• Lucia Ghiretti — Social Media Manager
• Salvatore Calderaro — Streaming & Media Manager

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank all participants, speakers, mentors, reviewers, and organizers who contributed to the success of the initiative.

A special thanks to:

• ISCB RSG Italy for sponsoring the coffee break and social aperitivo;
• BITS 2026 Conference for hosting the BioHackathon within its conference program;
• HPC4AI for providing the computational infrastructure used during the event.

Looking Forward

The BioHackathon 2026 demonstrated the value of combining training, collaboration, and hands-on computational biology challenges to foster learning and community building.

We look forward to future editions and to welcoming new participants to upcoming Young InfoLife initiatives.