Hackathon on Spatial Omics and Image-Derived Data
Venice International University – San Servolo Island, Venice
The Hackathon on Spatial Omics and Image-Derived Data, organized by the Department of Statistical Sciences of the University of Padova in collaboration with EMBL and Venice International University, was successfully held from 19 to 22 April 2026 on San Servolo Island, Venice.
Coordinated by Davide Risso, Professor at the Department of Statistical Sciences of the University of Padova, Helena Crowell (Centro Nacional de Análisis Genómico – CNAG, Barcelona), and Wolfgang Huber (EMBL), the event brought together 27 researchers and software developers from Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Spain, and the United States. The hackathon aimed to develop new open-source solutions for the analysis of spatial omics and bioimaging data, contributing to the advancement of the Bioconductor ecosystem, one of the leading international projects for the development of software for biological data analysis.
Over three days of intensive collaborative work, participants formed teams focusing on four strategic themes: spatially stratified differential expression analysis; image and segmentation data manipulation and visualization; infrastructure and interoperability for spatial data in Bioconductor; and facilitating the use of foundation models within the Bioconductor community.
The event fostered interdisciplinary collaboration among senior and early-career researchers with expertise ranging from bioinformatics to software engineering, promoting international cooperation and the development of open, community-driven tools and methodologies.
The outputs of the hackathon—including new software, technical documentation, and supporting resources—have been collected in a dedicated GitHub repository and will be presented in a collaborative preprint documenting the activities and the main scientific and technical achievements of the initiative.
The hackathon was partially funded by the European Research Council (ERC) through Consolidator Grant 101171662 and was also supported by Theory@EMBL, highlighting the Department of Statistical Sciences' commitment to fostering international research collaborations and advancing open-source software for the life sciences.
Further details about the event are available in the report published on the Bioconductor Community Blog.
