{"id":2633,"date":"2011-05-13T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-05-13T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.msdn.microsoft.com\/msr_er\/2011\/05\/13\/bioinformatics-front-and-center-at-mbf-workshop\/"},"modified":"2016-07-20T07:33:54","modified_gmt":"2016-07-20T14:33:54","slug":"bioinformatics-front-and-center-at-mbf-workshop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/blog\/bioinformatics-front-and-center-at-mbf-workshop\/","title":{"rendered":"Bioinformatics Front and Center at MBF Workshop"},"content":{"rendered":"

(opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a> (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a> (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a>On April 19 and 20, the Microsoft Biology Initiative<\/span> (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a> welcomed a small, focused group to the Microsoft Biology Foundation Workshop 2011<\/span> (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a>, held at the Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI)<\/span> (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a> in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. The workshop was a clinic in the use of the Microsoft Biology Foundation (MBF)<\/span> (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a>, an open-source Microsoft .NET library and application-programming interface for bioinformatics research.<\/span><\/p>\n

Attendees included representatives from BASF Plant Science<\/span> (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a>, SRA International<\/span> (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a>, and the University of North Carolina<\/span> (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a>. The two-day workshop covered the basics of MBF, as well as more advanced topics, such as scalability and the new features in the beta 1 release of MBF version 2.0<\/span> (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a>. (The full release of version 2.0 is planned for this summer.)<\/span><\/p>\n

Mark Smith, our workshop instructor, did a great job of presenting the material and engaging the audience, which included participants with a variety of programming backgrounds. Attendees loved the code-along sessions, as well as the great introduction to Microsoft .NET Framework programming! Not surprisingly, there was considerable interest in the launch of our MBF coding contest<\/span> (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a>, where one lucky winner will receive an Xbox 360 with Kinect. Workshop samples, including slides and hands-on labs, are available on the Microsoft Biology Training<\/span> (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a> page.<\/span><\/p>\n

Feedback<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Participant input will help us make future MBF workshops more valuable. Here’s a sampling of participants’ feedback: <\/span><\/p>\n

What did you enjoy most about the workshop?<\/span><\/p>\n