On April 3 and 4, 2025 the 6th Central German Bioinformatics Meeting (Mittelerde Meeting) took place in Leipzig. Around 200 participants came together to discuss topics from the area Computational Biology and the intersection of AI and biology. The event also provided the framework for the meeting of the topic area Life Science and Medicine at ScaDS.AI Dresden/Leipzig. This overlap will continuously strengthen the networking with the regional bioinformatics community.

About the Mittelerde Meeting

The Central German Bioinformatics Meeting is also known as Mittelerde Meeting because it is held in the Central German region (Mitteldeutschland). It therefore brings together dozens of research groups in Computational Biology from the area. After two workshops at the Jena Centre for BioInformatics (JCB) in 2011 and 2013, the 1st Central German Meeting on Bioinformatics took place in Halle in 2015. After alternating locations in central Germany, Leipzig was chosen as the venue for the second time in eight years.

Meeting program

The first day of the event began with a welcome address by Prof. Peter Stadler and Prof. Jens Meiler. Due to the unexpected loss of the first talks speaker Prof. Sayan Mukherjee a few days earlier, Meiler kindly stepped in to open the event under difficult circumstances. He used this opportunity to commemorate his friend and colleague and pay tribute to his life and work – with shared memories, photos and a moment of silence.

After this difficult start, the meeting comprised a total of 25 presentations that took place over the two days. These were divided into several sessions covering the great variety of computational science in “Mittelerde”:

• Math-Graphs
• System Biology
• DNA
• Pixels-Graphs-Dots
• Structural / Molecules
• Omics
• Viral

The whole program can be found on the official page of the Mittelerde Meeting. The program was rounded out by a poster session including dinner. The participants had the opportunity to discuss almost 70 posters and explore future collaborations.

Keynotes by Prof. Hiller and Dr. Kühnert

Prof. Michael Hiller from Goethe University Frankfurt gave the first days keynote. He presented TOGA (Tool to infer Orthologs from Genome Alignments), a method that integrates gene annotation and the derivation of orthologous genes. He then explained how this tool can help to identify changes in genes associated with phenotypic traits in mammals.

As part of the “Viral”-session on the second day Dr. Denise Kühnert from the Centre for Artificial Intelligence in Public Health Research (ZKI-PH 2) (Robert Koch Institute) talked about the evolution and transmission of infectious pathogens. In addition, she explained how integrating machine learning techniques into phylogenomic approaches can improve the understanding of transmission patterns.

Poster Session

In the course of the first day, nearly 70 posters where split into two sessions and provided a chance to all participants to present and discuss their research among the regional community. The exchange was fostered by snacks and drinks and many participants stayed after the official session to deepen their ties or establish new connections.

Summary and outlook

All in all the Mittelerde Meeting 2025 was a great success in exchanging within the Life Science and Medicine Area of our center. It was also a big opportunity for young and senior scientists to connect across the meadowlands of Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia.

The Mittelerde Meeting endet with a farewell greeting and the obligatory ring handover to next year’s organizers. Dr. Jan Grau and Prof. Ivo Große from Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg received the ring from this year`s bearer Dr. Jan Ewald. He handed it over on behalf of the entire organization team with Prof. Peter Stadler, Prof. Jens Meiler, Dr. Stephan Bernhart and Alicia Diem.

Lastly we thank Leipzig University for support and our co-sponsors SECAI graduate school, ecSeq Bioinformatics GmbH and BMBF for making this woderful event possible.