talk-data.com

In this talk, Sebastian, a bioinformatics researcher and software engineer, shares his inspiring journey from wet lab biotechnology to computational bioinformatics. Hosted by Data Talks Club, this session explores how data science, AI, and open-source tools are transforming modern biological research — from DNA sequencing to metagenomics and protein structure prediction.

You’ll learn about: - The difference between wet lab and dry lab workflows in biotechnology - How bioinformatics enables faster insights through data-driven modeling - The MCW2 Graph Project and its role in studying wastewater microbiomes - Using co-abundance networks and the CC Lasso algorithm to map microbial interactions - How AlphaFold revolutionized protein structure prediction - Building scientific knowledge graphs to integrate biological metadata - Open-source tools like VueGen and VueCore for automating reports and visualizations - The growing impact of AI and large language models (LLMs) in research and documentation - Key differences between R (BioConductor) and Python ecosystems for bioinformatics

This talk is ideal for data scientists, bioinformaticians, biotech researchers, and AI enthusiasts who want to understand how data science, AI, and biology intersect. Whether you work in genomics, computational biology, or scientific software, you’ll gain insights into real-world tools and workflows shaping the future of bioinformatics.

Links: - MicW2Graph: https://zenodo.org/records/12507444 - VueGen: https://github.com/Multiomics-Analytics-Group/vuegen - Awesome-Bioinformatics: https://github.com/danielecook/Awesome-Bioinformatics

TIMECODES00:00 Sebastian’s Journey into Bioinformatics06:02 From Wet Lab to Computational Biology08:23 Wet Lab vs Dry Lab Explained12:35 Bioinformatics as Data Science for Biology15:30 How DNA Sequencing Works19:29 MCW2 Graph and Wastewater Microbiomes23:10 Building Microbial Networks with CC Lasso26:54 Protein–Ligand Simulation Basics29:58 Predicting Protein Folding in 3D33:30 AlphaFold Revolution in Protein Prediction36:45 Inside the MCW2 Knowledge Graph39:54 VueGen: Automating Scientific Reports43:56 VueCore: Visualizing OMIX Data47:50 Using AI and LLMs in Bioinformatics50:25 R vs Python in Bioinformatics Tools53:17 Closing Thoughts from Ecuador Connect with Sebastian Twitter - https://twitter.com/sayalaruanoLinkedin - https://linkedin.com/in/sayalaruano Github - https://github.com/sayalaruanoWebsite - https://sayalaruano.github.io/ Connect with DataTalks.Club: Join the community - https://datatalks.club/slack.htmlSubscribe to our Google calendar to have all our events in your calendar - https://calendar.google.com/calendar/r?cid=ZjhxaWRqbnEwamhzY3A4ODA5azFlZ2hzNjBAZ3JvdXAuY2FsZW5kYXIuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbQCheck other upcoming events - https://lu.ma/dtc-eventsGitHub: https://github.com/DataTalksClubLinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/datatalks-club/Twitter - https://twitter.com/DataTalksClub - Website - https://datatalks.club/

UPDATE: IN-PERSON ONLY EVENT! Date: Saturday, May 24, 2025 Venue: Microsoft Office, Gurugram Time: 10:00 AM – 6:00 PM IST

For inquiries, email: [email protected]

India’s Premier AI & Data Analytics Learning Experience

Join industry professionals, data enthusiasts, and AI learners for an exclusive full-day Power BI and AI summit. This event is designed to provide practical skills, hands-on learning, and networking opportunities for students, professionals, and aspiring data leaders.

What You’ll Gain

• Hands-on Power BI & AI Workshops – Learn real-world applications with live demos.
• Industry Expert Talks – Gain insights from top professionals and tech innovators.
• Networking & Collaboration Sessions – Connect with peers, mentors, and industry leaders.
• Power BI & AI Challenge – Solve real-world case studies and win exciting prizes.
• AI-Powered Resume Review & Career Guidance – Get personalized feedback on your career path.
• Certificate of Participation – Showcase your learning with an official certificate.
• Premium Lunch & High-Tea – Enjoy great food while networking.

Session Topics

• Power BI + Azure OpenAI – How business intelligence is being reshaped using language models and generative AI.
• Building AI Agentic Systems – Real-world use cases and deployment strategies for agent-based AI solutions.
• GraphRAG and Google Gemini – Enhance AI responses using graph-based retrieval augmented generation models.
• Monitoring Agentic Systems with Power BI – Track performance and behavior metrics of deployed AI agents.
• Streamlining Data Integration with Azure Data Factory – Techniques for building efficient data pipelines.
• Startup Pe Charcha – An honest conversation about entrepreneurial journeys, pivots, and building in the AI space.
• AI Career Track & Resume Review – Real-time review and career insights to help you grow in AI & analytics.

Exclusive Perks for Attendees

• First 50 registrants receive a special AI learning kit
• Custom networking badges to help you connect with the right people
• Surprise giveaways for engaged participants
• AI-powered resume review booth for career insights

Who Should Attend?

• Power BI Developers & Analysts
• Data Scientists, AI Engineers & Researchers
• Startup Founders & Product Leaders
• Cloud & DevOps Engineers
• Tech Students and Community Contributors
• Anyone curious about how AI + Analytics is shaping the future

Limited Seats – Register Now Sign Up Now

Seat confirmation will be notified by email.

Registration Link: https://forms.cloud.microsoft/r/DaxsbvxzRB

Organized by: Power BI Uttar Pradesh Club In collaboration with Microsoft, local developer communities, and tech mentors.

In this podcast episode, we talked with Lavanya Gupta about Building a Strong Career in Data. About the Speaker: Lavanya is a Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) alumni of the Language Technologies Institute (LTI). She works as a Sr. AI/ML Applied Associate at JPMorgan Chase in their specialized Machine Learning Center of Excellence (MLCOE) vertical. Her latest research on long-context evaluation of LLMs was published in EMNLP 2024.

In addition to having a strong industrial research background of 5+ years, she is also an enthusiastic technical speaker. She has delivered talks at events such as Women in Data Science (WiDS) 2021, PyData, Illuminate AI 2021, TensorFlow User Group (TFUG), and MindHack! Summit. She also serves as a reviewer at top-tier NLP conferences (NeurIPS 2024, ICLR 2025, NAACL 2025). Additionally, through her collaborations with various prestigious organizations, like Anita BOrg and Women in Coding and Data Science (WiCDS), she is committed to mentoring aspiring machine learning enthusiasts.

In this episode, we talk about Lavanya Gupta’s journey from software engineer to AI researcher. She shares how hackathons sparked her passion for machine learning, her transition into NLP, and her current work benchmarking large language models in finance. Tune in for practical insights on building a strong data career and navigating the evolving AI landscape.

🕒 TIMECODES 00:00 Lavanya’s journey from software engineer to AI researcher 10:15 Benchmarking long context language models 12:36 Limitations of large context models in real domains 14:54 Handling large documents and publishing research in industry 19:45 Building a data science career: publications, motivation, and mentorship 25:01 Self-learning, hackathons, and networking 33:24 Community work and Kaggle projects 37:32 Mentorship and open-ended guidance 51:28 Building a strong data science portfolio 🔗 CONNECT WITH LAVANYALinkedIn -   / lgupta18  🔗 CONNECT WITH DataTalksClub Join the community - https://datatalks.club/slack.html Subscribe to our Google calendar to have all our events in your calendar - https://calendar.google.com/calendar/... Check other upcoming events - https://lu.ma/dtc-events LinkedIn -   / datatalks-club   Twitter -   / datatalksclub   Website - https://datatalks.club/

AGENDA 18.00 – 18:20 Meet & Greet

18:20 - 19:10: Exploring data technologies using free tools, Dom Winsor and Phil Austin

An overview, with demos, of how to develop your data skills using free tools for data manipulation, visualisation and transformation using languages like SQL and Python in the cloud and on your (Windows) laptop.

Bio's

Dom Winsor

Creative and Data Technologist turned Product Manager.

Dom has worked across digital disciplines, primarily in the education and public sector starting out doing visual/interface design and development for web & eLearning products, leading to specialism in data-driven interactive applications, then data collection, analysis, and presentation solutions.

Many of these multi-faceted roles required agile development and delivery skills, which he currently applies to Product Management for large scale data integration platforms.

Dom also helps with local tech community activities, currently including volunteering at a kids code club, helping organise the Data Bristol user group and earlier this year co-organising a Product 'Un-conference'.

Phil Austin Senior Consultant at Telefónica Tech, Speaker

Phil has spent over 20 years down the data mines, working for household names and total unknowns. He knows a fair bit about BI and data warehousing using SQL Server and Azure. He also takes an interest in testing, query tuning, automation, development lifecycle and what is now known as DevOps, but don’t hold that against him.

Outside of that you might see him hacking around Bristol on a bike, sometimes for charity. If you buy him a drink he might tell you about the time a Nokia executive told him Apple don’t know anything about phones.

19:10 - 19:40 Pizza and Networking

19:40 - 20:30 Q&A Panel Discussion

We had some great feedback from the group previously in the year, So we have taken this onboard and are going to host a Panel of Data Expects covering Data Engineering to Data Products.

The theme is: Developing Data Engineering Capabilities for Yourself and for Your Organisation

James Yarrow will host the Panel with some set questions and live questions from you as the audience via Slido! We will share a link on the day. The Panel will feature the below.

Anna Wykes, Dual Microsoft MVP and Databrick Champion Currently at DataBricks US, Organiser for Data Bristol, Data Summit and more Naill Langley, Data Engineer and Architect, Blogger and Speaker Dom Winsor, Data Integration Platform Product Manager, Speaker and Master of Socials for Data Bristol And hopefully a guest speaker!

----- Event sponsors

We would like to thank our generous sponsors for supporting us: Ovo Energy (www.ovoenergy.com)

Location

The venue is: Ovo Energy, 1 Rivergate Temple Quay,

------ Photos

We ask that you do NOT take photos at this meetup. We will invite people to be included in a group photo/s during the event. Speakers will let you know if it's okay to photograph their presentation (excluding other attendees). You may see organisers taking photos during the talks. These will be of speakers, if they have agreed to this, and will not include faces of attendees.

Venue: Carnival House, 100 Harbour Parade, Southampton, SO15 1ST

Please note:

1. 🚨🚨🚨A valid photo ID is required by building security. You MUST use your initial/first name and surname on your meetup profile, otherwise, you will NOT make it on the guest list! 🚨🚨🚨
2. This event follows the NumFOCUS Code of Conduct, please familiarise yourself with it before the event.

If your RSVP status says "You're going" you will be able to get in. No further confirmation required. You will NOT need to show your RSVP confirmation when signing in. If you can no longer make it, please unRSVP as soon as you know so we can assign your place to someone on the waiting list.

*** Code of Conduct: This event follows the NumFOCUS Code of Conduct, please familiarise yourself with it before the event. Please get in touch with the organisers with any questions or concerns regarding the Code of Conduct. *** There will be pizza & drinks, generously provided by our host, Carnival UK. ***

Main Talks 1️⃣ OpenAI's Function Calling: What is it and how can we take advantage of it? - Anoop Tatti Imagine if ChatGPT could seamlessly schedule meetings, offer real-time public transport updates or provide current weather information. Well, thanks to OpenAI's 'Function Calling' feature, all of this is possible.

Here's how Function Calling works: We define available functions and train the OpenAI model to recognise user intent. When a user asks a question or makes a request, the model identifies their intention and matches it to the appropriate function. The system then executes the function, producing raw output, which is transformed into a user-friendly natural language response by the model. This session explores Function Calling through practical examples, including a 'Digital Personal Assistant' for calendar and task retrieval and a chatbot providing real-time TfL (Transport for London) underground train information. Demonstrations will take place in Teams and on SharePoint pages, providing attendees with a solid understanding of Function Calling.

2️⃣ Building a data science solution for an NGO when you don’t know what infrastructure it will run on: a case study predicting tutor supply and demand mismatch - Adam Hill The Brilliant Club is an NGO focused on two goals: student access and student success. TBC wants more pupils from less advantaged backgrounds to access university; their aim is to work with 100,000 pupils on their flagship Scholars Programme over the next five years. To achieve these aims, TBC needs to ensure that they have the right number of PhD researcher volunteers in the right areas to meet school demand.

A team of 6 DataKind volunteers worked to explore the data, and make a maintainable, functional set of models that could help in the prediction of TBC’s tutor supply and demand using the latest available data and visualising it in an easy-to-use manner. We built our solution around various open-source tools and technologies including: Python; Scikit-learn; Jupyter; Docker; PostgreSQL; dbt; Prefect. In this talk, we will discuss how we designed the solution to deliver it in an accessible way and demonstrate how we implemented the various technologies.

Lightning Talks ⚡ ⚡1️⃣ Cruising Through Soton: Optimising Your Journey for a Satisfyingly Speedier Commute - Austen Wallis ⚡2️⃣ TBA

Logistics Doors open at 6.30 pm, talks start at 7 pm. For those who wish to continue networking and chatting we will move to a nearby pub/bar for drinks from 9 pm.

Please unRSVP in good time if you realise you can't make it. We're limited by building security on the number of attendees, so please free up your place for your fellow community members!

Follow @pydatasoton (https://twitter.com/pydatasoton) for updates and early announcements. We are also on Instagram/Threads as @pydatasoton; and find us on LinkedIn.

We're back for another event in 2023 - same time and place, new speakers. Come join us! Big thanks to everyone who made the inaugural event a success. We look forward to welcoming you (and hopefully lots of new faces) back.

Get to know the other attendees over a drink and pizza, followed by several talks. After the event we invite you to come along to Topsham Brewery to discuss the talks, make new connections and enjoy the company.

Agenda:

• 18:30 Doors open (ring reception)
• 19:15 Talks start
• 20:30 Moving on to Topsham Brewery

Talks: 25-minute talks:

• "Teaching drunk giraffes to walk using reinforcement learning" by Tim Dodwell.
• "Teaching Astronomy with Python" by Dimitrios Theodorakis.

10-minute lightning talk:

• "Using synthetic data to unblock the client project" by David Dancey.

If you're interested in presenting at future events please submit a talk proposal: PyData Talk Proposal Form.

Speakers: Tim Dodwell: As the Co-Founder and Chief Technical Officer of digiLab, he leads the development of innovative and scalable solutions for the digital twin revolution. digiLab is a fast-growing start-up that leverages artificial intelligence, mathematical modeling, and statistical data analysis to help engineering industries optimize their complex systems and make effective decisions. He is also a Turing AI Fellow and a Chair of Data Centric Engineering at the University of Exeter, where he conducts cutting-edge research on the fusion of real-world data and mathematical models for engineering applications. He works with partners from aerospace, high-value manufacturing, weather, air traffic control, water, and energy sectors.

Dimitrios Theodorakis: He is a former science teacher (physics specialist) turned software engineer based at the UK Met Office. An Astronomer by training and keen Python programmer his interests lie in how coding can be used to teach other subjects, using Python to teach the BTEC Unit 16: Astronomy and Space course and as part of astronomy club. During the first lockdown in 2020, he started the “Astronomy and Python” project which incorporates coding into the teaching of astronomy at all levels. Since then, the project has grown to over 15 interactive Python activities and created the “astroedu” package that provides utility code and activities to teach astronomy.

David Dancey: They are a data consultant at Butterfly Data and have worked across a variety of public sector projects. Previous experience includes ML-based insurance risk profiling and the assessment of flood mitigation plans using simulations.

Sponsors: DigiLab, University of Exeter

If your plans change, please cancel your attendance on Meetup in good time to free up your space for other community members.

CODE OF CONDUCT The PyData Code of Conduct governs this meetup (https://pydata.org/code-of-conduct/). To discuss any issues or concerns relating to the code of conduct or behaviour of anyone at the PyData meetup, please contact the PyData Exeter organisers, or you can submit a report of any potential Code of Conduct violation directly to NumFOCUS (https://numfocus.typeform.com/to/ynjGdT).

PyDataMCR September!

THE TALKS

Going above and Beyond for Good: Helping a Charity with Data Acquisition and Quality- Kaily Newman (she/her)

Kaily is a Data Engineer at Accenture, she joined the tech industry 2 years ago as a career changer. She loves empowering others, including democratising access to knowledge and especially tech, motorsports, and perfumes.

LinkedIn

Streamlit in Python: Guide to present your ML Models easily by creating Web-App Interfaces with less code - Yash Sakhuja (he/him)

Yash is a MSc Business Analytics student at University of Manchester and has recently finished a research project with Lancashire County Cricket Club.

LinkedIn

We'll be at AutoTrader Manchester, who are kindly supplying catering. The capacity is limited to 60.

EVENT GUIDELINES

PyDataMCR is a strictly professional event, as such professional behaviour is expected.

PyDataMCR is a chapter of PyData, an educational program of NumFOCUS and thus abides by the NumFOCUS Code of Conduct

https://pydata.org/code-of-conduct.html

Please take a moment to familiarise yourself with its contents.

ACCESSIBILITY

Under 16s welcome with a responsible guardian. There is a quiet room available if needed. Toilets are accessible, so I am hoping the venue is too but looking for more details!

SPONSORS

Thank you to NUMFocus for sponsoring Meetup and further support

Thank you to Infinity Works for an awesome, hybrid-ready venue and catering!

We talked about:

Aaisha’s background How homeschooling affects self-study Deciding on what to learn about Establishing whether a resource is good How Aaisha focuses on learning Deciding on what kind of project to build Find research materials Aaisha’s experience with the Data Talks Club ML Zoomcamp ML Zoomcamp projects Aaisha’s interest in bioinformatics Keeping motivated with deadlines Notes and time-tracking tools Drawbacks to self-studying Aaisha’s interest in machine learning Aaisha’s least favorable part of ML Zoomcamp Helping people as a way to learn Using ChatGPT as a “study group” Is it possible to use self-studying to learn high-level topics Switching topics to avoid burnout Aaisha’s resource recommendations

Links:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaisha-muhammad/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/ZealousMushroom Github: https://github.com/AaishaMuhammad Website: http://www.aaishamuhammad.co.za/

Free data engineering course: https://github.com/DataTalksClub/data-engineering-zoomcamp

Join DataTalks.Club: https://datatalks.club/slack.html

Our events: https://datatalks.club/events.html