Dr Wendi Bacon

Professional biography

Bioinformatics Education

Bioinformatics is one of the biggest skill gaps in modern biology and biomedical science. The Galaxy Project is an open science consortium to create a means for scientists to analyse their big data (Omics data in particular, such as DNA or RNA sequencing) without access to expensive computational infrastructure or programming skills. By providing more flexibility and connection to users, Wendi aims to improve bioinformatics learning, assess student experiences, and evaluate impact of bioinformatics skills on career trajectories. In line with both The Open University and The Galaxy Project's ethos towards democratising science, she has led projects on tutorial translations to increase the participation of Latin America within the Galaxy community (you can check out the project video for a Spanish bioinformatics workshop here) and advocates for improvements in platform accessibility.

Single-cell Biology

Wendi’s particular bioinformatic skillset is in single-cell analysis. We now have the technology to isolate all of the RNA (or DNA, or chromatin structure...or - increasingly - protein!) from a single cell, across thousands (or even millions!) of cells in a tissue or body. With such quantities of data comes challenging data analysis. The analytical field is moving quickly to answer key questions, for instance, “How many cell types are there in a human lung?” or “Which cell is affected by this oncogene?”, or “How does this drug affect the RNA and DNA structure in particular cell types?”. Leveraging the workflow features within the Galaxy interface, Wendi collaborates with multiple members of the LHCS community as well as academics at the University of Cambridge, the Babraham Institute, and beyond, to provide bioinformatics analysis. She is particularly interested in repurposing publicly available data to answer novel questions.

Widening participation for women in sport

Outside of science, Wendi is a martial arts instructor, dedicated to widening participation for underprivileged groups. This hobby grew into a research consortium focusing on physical, social, and infrastructural barriers to women's healthy high impact sport participation. Having experienced an ACL tear and subsequent rehabilitation herself, Wendi is particularly interested in preventing similar injuries for others, improving injury recording, and developing better tools for recreational coaches to safely train their participants.

​Group Members

• Marisa Loach - PhD Student | Single cell transcriptomics in health & disease
• Kayleigh Smith - PhD Student, Primary supervisor: Luisa Pedro | Identification of B-cell Dysfunction in Therapy and Diseas 
• Jurgi Giraud - PhD Student in Linguistic Sciences, Primary supervisor: Andrew Gargett |The Art of Translation: Developing Multilingual Digital Resources using Artifical Intelligence to Support Translation in Bioinformatics
• Jessica Mace - PhD student, Primary supervisor: Sushila Rigas | Genetics of MOG Antibody Disease​
• Menna Gamal - MSc Student in Bioinformatics at University of Birmingham & former EPSRC intern | Leveraging public data for single-cell analysis in Galaxy
• Carlos Mendonca - MPhil Student in Biological Sciences at University of Cambridge, Primary supervisor: Erica Watson | Placental Architecture in Health & Disease
• Julia Jakiela - EPSRC Intern & EOSC-Life Training intern | Single cell trajectory analysis in Galaxy
• Morgan Howells - EPSRC Intern | Automated cell annotation for single cell analysis in Galaxy

Former Members

• Camila Goclowski - Intern | Batch correction & Seurat analysis in Galaxy
• Stefy Dreptate - Intern | Spanscriptomics Workshop: Análisis de células únicas usando Galaxy | Single cell analysis using Galaxy

Random group photos

Wendi has contributed significantly to scientific courses through the European Bioinformatics Institute and through ELIXIR events.

Her Galaxy contributions can be found on her contributor page: https://training.galaxyproject.org/training-material/hall-of-fame/nomadscientist/

She has also led numerous community engagement and resource development efforts for global scientists, some of which are below:

• HDR-UK / ELIXIR-UK inaugural Hackathon Co-lead (with Morgan Howells) for maintaining single-cell Galaxy resources
• SPOC Write-athon & inaugural Community CoFest Leads for maintaining and improving single-cell Galaxy resources, and publishing on community efforts
• EuroBiohackathon Co-lead in 2024 for building the Galaxy CoDex, a repository of community resources
• CoFest project lead at the Galaxy Community Conference in 2024 for integrating global single-cell subdomains
• Co-lead for the ELIXIR All-Hands workshop in 2024 for improving single-cell data practices in Galaxy with Pavankumar Videm
• CoFest project lead at the European Galaxy Days in 2023 for unifying single-cell subdomains

EMBL-EBI Single Cell Course Scientific Organiser

ELIXIR-UK Steering Group, Open University Representative

ELIXIR-UK Galaxy Community

ELIXIR-UK Single Cell Omics Community

ELIXIR-UK DaSH Fellowship Mentor

Galaxy Single Cell & sPatial Omics Community (SPOC) Chair

Galaxy Single Cell Editorial Board

Galaxy Community Board Chair

Galaxy Executive Board