OCB is supporting an exciting new small group activity Intercomparison of metatranscriptomic methods for characterizing microbial eukaryote contributions to the biological carbon pump, which is being led by Harriet Alexander (WHOI), Natalie Cohen (UGA), Sarah Hu (TAMU), and Adrian Marchetti (UNC Chapel Hill). The goal is this working group is to determine how various methodological choices made during metatranscriptome processing influence downstream biological interpretations. This group is broadly interested in microbial ecology, with a focus on the utility of omic tools, their development, and how they can be used to further our understanding of marine microbial diversity and function. We look forward to discussing other omic intercomparison efforts and what can be learned from these exercises. If you currently use omics, or are looking to in the future, this group welcomes your perspective!

To engage the broader community, we will convene a bimonthly webinar series that is open to all who are interested. Please let us know if you wish to participate, and we welcome your ideas for speakers that span omic method topic areas, as well as ideas for webinar themes (we will feature two speakers per webinar). We especially encourage early career members of our community to consider giving a seminar.  Webinar talks will be ~20 minutes each, leaving plenty of time for a moderated Q&A and discussion sessions after the talks. We will record and make these seminars available via the OCB YouTube channel (https://tinyurl.com/y7o3gyuc) to accommodate those who cannot participate in real time.