bAIome is delighted to suport the German Conference on Bioinformatics (GCB) taking place in Düsseldorf this year with a special workshop on Spatial domain identification: computational methods for discovering tissue architecture instructed by Dr. Robin Khatri from Institute of Medical Systems Bioinformatics, UKE.

This workshop focuses on computational approaches for identifying and characterizing spatial domains in single-cell spatial transcriptomics (ST) data. Spatial domains are tissue regions that share similar features, such as similar gene expression profiles and cell type abundances. For analysis of ST data, it is generally necessary to identify these domains to understand their dynamics under different tissue conditions, such as between healthy and disease states.

As ST data is increasingly used in research due to the benefit of in-situ identification of transcripts and cells, several computational approaches for spatial domain identification have been developed. In this workshop, participants learn methods for unsupervised detection of spatial domains with distinct molecular signatures and understand techniques for biological interpretation of spatial domains along with associated caveats. Through hands-on tutorials, participants learn about and apply state-of-the-art domain identification algorithms to real spatial transcriptomics datasets.

Topics:

Introduction to spatial domain identification
Methodological foundations
Tutorial I—Preprocessing, implementation and evaluation metrics
Tutorial II—Analysis, biological interpretation and discussion

Prerequisites:

The workshop requires previous introduction to single-cell and/or spatial transcriptomics. Participants should be comfortable programming in Python for basic tasks. Attendees must bring their own laptops.