The BioData.pt | ELIXIR-PT Technical Meeting 2026 took place on 18th May at INESC-ID, in Lisbon. The annual gathering brought together 31 participants in a forum dedicated to addressing the needs of the life and health sciences community through collaboration, knowledge-sharing, and cutting-edge tools.
This year's edition placed artificial intelligence and machine learning at the heart of the technical agenda, with hands-on sessions making use of Deucalion, the Portuguese national supercomputer. The event also featured the presentation of BioChef an innovative browser-based platform for genomic data processing.
The morning opened with a two-hour workshop entitled Intelligent Care | How to Build an AI Assistant for Healthcare, led by Andreia Gaudêncio (FCT-FCCN, CNCA). The session walked participants through the full development cycle of an AI assistant for healthcare. The activity was designed to translate technical concepts into a functional solution, ensuring a clear understanding from data preparation through to final execution.
Following lunch, Andreia Gaudêncio returned to deliver a second workshop, First Steps in ML | Essential Concepts, offering a concise and practical introduction to the machine learning workflow. Participants explored initial variable analysis, feature selection criteria, data splitting strategies, and a comparison of different algorithms, all grounded in the resources of the Deucalion supercomputer.
The afternoon concluded with a two-hour presentation by Jorge Silva and João Andrade (IEETA, University of Aveiro), who introduced BioChef, a browser-based platform for processing genomic data. The work has been published and is available at doi.org/10.1186/s12859-026-06431-1.
The event closed with a brief wrap-up session, bringing a productive day to an end.
The Technical Meeting is organised annually by BioData.pt | ELIXIR-PT and represents a key opportunity for researchers, engineers, and health professionals across Portugal to connect and share their work.
We look forward to seeing you at the next edition!