Matt Parker, the Associate Director for Clinical Bioinformatics at Oxford Nanopore Technologies, spoke at the Nanopore Community Meeting in Houston about updates to EPI2ME. The session started with a new video about EPI2ME, highlighting the intuitive interface, real-time data, and cloud or local analyses. Parker said you can take a MinION and laptop into the field and analyze. The EPI2ME team, Parker explained, is working on pre-configured workflows. The new interface has a dashboard with the available workflows. EPI2ME now works on Mac, Linux, and Windows OS. All workflows are available on GitHub. The EPI2ME website has documentation and a blog describing features and updates. Common workflows have been improved. Workflows now allow BAM input files. EPI2ME outputs reports that have undergone revisions to provide actionable data. The EPI2ME cloud can execute and store data on Amazon Web Services. EPI2ME Labs has been unified into EPI2ME. Parker demonstrated several workflows. The EPI2ME team is also working on a connection broker with MinKNOW that can be installed on devices such as the GridION. AmPORE-TB will be useful to sequence, analyze, and compare tuberculosis strains locally. EPI2ME will also enable integrations with third-party software this year. The example Parker gave was to dig deeper into annotations. I am excited about the EPI2ME updates. I will read more on the website and include EPI2ME workflows in the course I am developing.
