The DOE Systems Biology Knowledgebase (KBase) Educators Program continues to evolve, with recent funding transforming the program into the Microbiomes In Computational Microbiology Research Opportunities Network (MICROnet).
Many instructors face challenges providing students with impactful research experiences, particularly when it comes to computational biology. The KBase Educators Program was launched in 2020 to provide flexible, accessible computational resources for incorporating sophisticated workflows into the classroom. In 2023, the community and resources evolved into a full Microbiome Workforce Development program that prepares students for careers in microbiome research. Students that participate in the program are able to share their high-quality, curated data in KBase, where it can be immediately reused (with credit) by the scientific community. Students also author data publications through the American Society for Microbiology’s (ASM) Microbiology Resource Announcements (MRA). These student-authored articles are featured in ASM’s “Promoting Microbiome Workforce Development with KBase” collection, elevating student contributions to microbiome science.
The Microbiome Workforce Development program supports educators to design, build, and test training modules that lead students through the scientific process: developing a research question, planning an experiment, analyzing data, and publishing results and conclusions using KBase. The recent award, bestowed by the National Science Foundation’s Research Coordination Network for Undergraduate Biology Education, will support continued development and iteration on these modules while growing and broadening the educator network. Microbiomes In Computational Microbiology Research Opportunities Network (MICROnet) offers faculty workshops and training, peer-mentoring, regional networking, and access to resources to ensure they are supported for success in their classrooms.
“We look forward to leveraging the growing interest in workforce development programs to build regional hubs that expand our educator community,” said Ellen Dow, Educators Program Lead for KBase. “Hubs will ultimately be self-sustaining, supportive communities of educators that host peer-led training, mechanisms for resource sharing, and opportunities for students to collaborate between local institutions.”
A main focus of MICROnet is to recruit and train the next generation of microbiome researchers, while also establishing best practices for contributing open and FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable) data to KBase. These data are available to the broader scientific community, and KBase ensures student contributions are rewarded through citation when their data are reused for other analyses.
