@UGAResearch publishes article on the IOB Symposium
Bioinformatics symposium held online
UGA’s Institute of Bioinformatics explored Collective Behavior while practicing social distancing, holding its spring symposium online March 20. The decision to go online was an easy one, according to Jonathan Arnold, professor of genetics and co-chair of the event. He’d been following the spread of the coronavirus closely and anticipated that the university might shut down, so early in March he and co-chairs Travis Glenn and Natarajan Kannan decided to take the symposium online. Arnold said the decision relieved the anxiety of their speakers, who would have had to travel from Maryland, California, Texas, Massachusetts, Arizona and Glasgow, Scotland. “It’s also fun,” he said. “It’s a new way of doing things that allows us to reach more people.” The original plan was to host 150 people, but 407 “showed up.” That included students from the country of Jordan, where one of Arnold’s former students is now a professor. “The university is still doing business,” Arnold said. “We just have to find new ways of making it happen that recognize the need for social distancing.”
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