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SUMMARY:Mission impossible: metagenomic assembly - Pop\, M (University of 
 Maryland)
DTSTART:20140325T093000Z
DTEND:20140325T103000Z
UID:TALK51609@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Mustapha Amrani
DESCRIPTION:Computer scientists have repeatedly proven that genome assembl
 y\, even for a single organism\, is an intractable computational problem. 
 In metagenomics\, the problem is even harder - we are trying to simultaneo
 usly reconstruct many different and not so different genomes. Should we ev
 en try? \n\nIn my talk I will outline the main reasons to be pessimistic a
 bout metagenomic assembly and discuss possible ways forward. In particular
 \, I will argue that 'metagenomic assembly' is an ill defined concept and 
 that we\, as a community\, need to identify and formalize specific use cas
 es that address relevant biological problems and that are computationally 
 tractable. I will also discuss issues related to the validation of metagen
 omic assemblies\, an important yet often overlooked problem.\n
LOCATION:Seminar Room 1\, Newton Institute
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