PAASTA Bioinformatics Summer School 2026

General Info

The PAASTA Bioinformatics Summer School 2026 is an specialized educational initiative organized by the PAASTA community, an international organization dedicated to Palaeoproteomics And Archaeology, Society for Techniques and Advances. Running as an initiative under the European Proteomics Association (EuPA), this summer school is designed for early-career researchers, students, and bioarchaeologists wanting to Master the computational tools necessary to study ancient proteins preserved in archaeological and paleontological materials.

• Hosting Organization: The PAASTA Community, an early-career researcher-led scientific body focused on collaborative, open science in biomolecular archaeology.
• Format: The curriculum blends theoretical lectures with hands-on, practical computational exercises.
• Primary Focus: Bridging the gap between physical archaeological wet-lab sampling and computational mass-spectrometry/proteomics data analysis.

Relevant Topics

The lessons are curated to take participants through a complete ancient protein data workflow:

• Palaeoproteomic Theory: Understanding protein degradation, survival mechanisms in the archaeological record, and contamination pitfalls.
• Mass Spectrometry Data Analysis: Processing raw tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) data generated from ancient bone, dental calculus, or ceramic residue samples.
• Bioinformatics Resources & Pipelines: Utilizing specialized algorithmic tools and protein sequence databases to identify taxonomic markers.
• Open Science & Reproducibility: Implementing best practices for sharing code, raw data documentation, and managing collaborative open-source workflows.

Application Requirements

Target Audience: Primarily targeted toward students, bioarchaeologists, and early-career researchers (ECRs) handling or planning to handle palaeoproteomic datasets. Prerequisites: A basic familiarity with wet-lab archaeological science is helpful, though the school focuses heavily on introductory-to-intermediate computational steps. Submission Materials: Applicants generally need to provide an abstract of their current research, a motivation letter outlining how the bioinformatic training will aid their projects, and brief academic background info.

Application deadline: June 1, 2026.

Source and more details: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSewVBJaRckqah3vk7eoFFcJva4pa3awGq_1Dtq0gzrS63rlMw/viewform