Christophe Dessimoz
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dessimoz.bsky.social
Christophe Dessimoz
@dessimoz.bsky.social
630 followers 190 following 26 posts
Executive Director of SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics @sib.swiss and Professor at the University of Lausanne (UNIL), Switzerland. @cdessimoz and @dessimoz@mstdn.science elsewhere. Comparative Genomics, Phylogenetics, Evolution, Computational Biology.
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Reposted by Christophe Dessimoz
hansonmark.bsky.social
We wrote the Strain on scientific publishing to highlight the problems of time & trust. With a fantastic group of co-authors, we present The Drain of Scientific Publishing:

a 🧵 1/n

Drain: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820
Strain: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
Oligopoly: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
A table showing profit margins of major publishers. A snippet of text related to this table is below. 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year. A figure detailing the drain on researcher time. 1. The four-fold drain 1.2 Time The number of papers published each year is growing faster than the scientific workforce, with the number of papers per researcher almost doubling between 1996 and 2022 (Figure 1A). This reflects the fact that publishers’ commercial desire to publish (sell) more material has aligned well with the competitive prestige culture in which publications help secure jobs, grants, promotions, and awards. To the extent that this growth is driven by a pressure for profit, rather than scholarly imperatives, it distorts the way researchers spend their time. The publishing system depends on unpaid reviewer labour, estimated to be over 130 million unpaid hours annually in 2020 alone (9). Researchers have complained about the demands of peer-review for decades, but the scale of the problem is now worse, with editors reporting widespread difficulties recruiting reviewers. The growth in publications involves not only the authors’ time, but that of academic editors and reviewers who are dealing with so many review demands. Even more seriously, the imperative to produce ever more articles reshapes the nature of scientific inquiry. Evidence across multiple fields shows that more papers result in ‘ossification’, not new ideas (10). It may seem paradoxical that more papers can slow progress until one considers how it affects researchers’ time. While rewards remain tied to volume, prestige, and impact of publications, researchers will be nudged away from riskier, local, interdisciplinary, and long-term work. The result is a treadmill of constant activity with limited progress whereas core scholarly practices – such as reading, reflecting and engaging with others’ contributions – is de-prioritized. What looks like productivity often masks intellectual exhaustion built on a demoralizing, narrowing scientific vision. A table of profit margins across industries. The section of text related to this table is below: 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year. The costs of inaction are plain: wasted public funds, lost researcher time, compromised scientific integrity and eroded public trust. Today, the system rewards commercial publishers first, and science second. Without bold action from the funders we risk continuing to pour resources into a system that prioritizes profit over the advancement of scientific knowledge.
November 11, 2025 at 11:52 AM
Reposted by Christophe Dessimoz
sib.swiss
Join our upcoming @fidelis-project.bsky.social network training event, organized by SIB, to explore: AI for Digital Repositories: Opportunities and Challenges, on 2 December 2025, 15:00–16:30 CET. eden-fidelis.eu/events/ai-di...

@sduvaud.bsky.social @geertvangeest.bsky.social
November 10, 2025 at 2:44 PM
Reposted by Christophe Dessimoz
fbm-unil.bsky.social
Save the date!
𝗦𝘄𝗶𝘀𝘀 𝗠𝗶𝗰𝗿𝗼𝗯𝗶𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘀 𝗙𝗼𝗿𝘂𝗺 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟲
The NCCR Microbiomes presents the third edition of the #Swiss #Microbiomes #Forum
🗓️ Thursday, Feb 5th 2026
🕑 14h00
📍 EPFL Rolex Learning Center, Lausanne
🎟️ Free to attend, but registration is required.
🔗 nccr-microbiomes.ch/tech-transfe...
Third edition - 2026 - NCCR
nccr-microbiomes.ch
November 6, 2025 at 9:10 AM
Reposted by Christophe Dessimoz
waynemaddison.bsky.social
The end of an era: the Tree of Life Web Project is going dark after 3 decades. Anyone interested in communicating phylogeny online should read David's account of goals, history, and future. @bembidion.bsky.social
subulatepalpomere.com/2025/11/02/t...
The Passing of the Tree of Life Web Project
The Tree of Life Web Project began its journey almost 40 years ago, and was formally announced in early 1996. It has served thousands of pages of information about the evolutionary tree of life and…
subulatepalpomere.com
November 3, 2025 at 3:54 PM
Reposted by Christophe Dessimoz
eccb-europe.bsky.social
📣 The call for tutorials & workshops at #ECCB2026 is now open! Share your tools, methods or expertise with the community.
🗓️ Deadline: 5 January 2026
👉 Submit: tinyurl.com/tw-eccb26

💡 ECCB will take place on 31 Aug–4 Sept in Geneva, gathering 1,000+ scientists from academia, industry, & healthcare.
November 3, 2025 at 8:09 AM
dessimoz.bsky.social
Beyond science, the stakes are national. Having Swiss-based, reference-quality data collections — managed in line with our laws and values — strengthens our ability to make informed decisions and act independently.
sib.swiss SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics @sib.swiss · 12d
💡 No AI in health without great data. In @BilanMagazine’s health supplement, Christophe Dessimoz @dessimoz.bsky.social makes the case for Switzerland as a leader in trusted, high-quality health data — and how turning data into public value starts with strong infrastructures.
👇 Read more
Reliable data for better care
Every medical revolution has been driven by a technological breakthrough: chemical synthesis paved the way for modern medicines, genetics for the first gene therapies. The next frontier will be determ...
www.sib.swiss
November 1, 2025 at 7:59 AM
Reposted by Christophe Dessimoz
dessimoz.bsky.social
Job alert🚨📢! Join us as Director of the SIB Centre for Pathogen Bioinformatics, on a topic where global collaboration is particularly important, in a highly stimulating environment. This is a research infrastructure leadership position.

Apply or spread the word!

apply.refline.ch/499599/0346/...
Director, Center for Pathogen Bioinformatics
The Centre for Pathogen Bioinformatics (CPB) is a unit of SIB which offers expertise and services in pathogen bioinformatics, computational molecular epidemiology and related multi-site project manage...
apply.refline.ch
October 23, 2025 at 5:34 AM
dessimoz.bsky.social
Our lab has published a couple of major papers in the past few months, which I would like to highlight in this thread! 🧵
October 23, 2025 at 6:10 AM
dessimoz.bsky.social
Job alert🚨📢! Join us as Director of the SIB Centre for Pathogen Bioinformatics, on a topic where global collaboration is particularly important, in a highly stimulating environment. This is a research infrastructure leadership position.

Apply or spread the word!

apply.refline.ch/499599/0346/...
Director, Center for Pathogen Bioinformatics
The Centre for Pathogen Bioinformatics (CPB) is a unit of SIB which offers expertise and services in pathogen bioinformatics, computational molecular epidemiology and related multi-site project manage...
apply.refline.ch
October 23, 2025 at 5:34 AM
Reposted by Christophe Dessimoz
bioinfoadv.bsky.social
🧬 Now published in Bioinformatics Advances: “Advances and challenges in understanding evolution through genome comparison.”

Read the full paper here: https://doi.org/10.1093/bioadv/vbaf223
October 20, 2025 at 10:01 AM
Reposted by Christophe Dessimoz
anaconesa.bsky.social
Looking for scientists working with long-read transcriptomics technologies to join a COST action proposal. Contact us!!! @nanoporetech.com @pacbio.bsky.social
October 2, 2025 at 5:25 PM
Reposted by Christophe Dessimoz
sib.swiss
🧬 US genomics expert Paul Thomas joins SIB as Swiss-Prot co-director, with @alanbridge.bsky.social
🔍 Leader in gene function research; among the world’s most-cited scientists
📊 His arrival strengthens SIB’s role in generating trustworthy, AI-ready biological knowledge #UniProt #GeneOntology
More 👇
US genomics pioneer Paul Thomas joins SIB as Swiss-Prot co-director
Paul Thomas joins Alan Bridge in leading SIB’s largest group, based in Geneva. As a pioneer in computational biology for genomics, principal investigator of a globally important resource on gene...
www.sib.swiss
September 15, 2025 at 11:43 AM
Reposted by Christophe Dessimoz
maxjtelford.bsky.social
My book The Tree of Life: Solving Science's Greatest Puzzle is currently LESS THAN HALF PRICE. That’s less than the paperback will be amzn.eu/d/53hSKH5
The Tree of Life: Solving Science's Greatest Puzzle: Amazon.co.uk: Telford, Max: 9781399806374: Books
Buy The Tree of Life: Solving Science's Greatest Puzzle by Telford, Max (ISBN: 9781399806374) from Amazon's Book Store. Everyday low prices and free delivery on eligible orders.
amzn.eu
September 14, 2025 at 2:57 PM
Reposted by Christophe Dessimoz
fbm-unil.bsky.social
🚨 New publication by the research group of @dessimoz.bsky.social @unil.bsky.social @sib.swiss in @natecoevo.nature.com 👇
August 27, 2025 at 9:46 AM
Reposted by Christophe Dessimoz
jonathonmifsud.bsky.social
There’s been a bunch of new approaches looking at deep viral evolutionary history. We’ve put together a mini review highlighting some recent advancements in structural phylogenetics and time-dependent rate models and what they could do for the field 🦠
🔗 journals.asm.org/doi/full/10....
Recent advances in the inference of deep viral evolutionary history | Journal of Virology
Phylogenetic studies examining the origins, emergence, and spread of viruses have arguably been one of the most active and successful areas of evolutionary biology and form the bedrock of the flourishing field of genomic epidemiology. This, in part, reflects the ability of viruses, particularly those with RNA genomes, to evolve at rates much greater than their cellular counterparts (1). The rapid rate at which viruses evolve and accumulate mutations enables evolutionary signals to be identified through comparative genomics at short timescales relevant for outbreak investigation and response. The integration of phylogenetics and epidemiology, known as phylodynamics, has become a vital tool in response to numerous viral outbreaks, epidemics, and pandemics, including Ebola (2), Zika (3), and, more recently, COVID-19 (4) and mpox (5).
journals.asm.org
August 25, 2025 at 8:32 PM
Reposted by Christophe Dessimoz
virginieuhlmann.bsky.social
Once is an exception, twice is a trend, thrice is a tradition!

Save the date for our now-traditional annual OME-NGFF extravaganza in Zurich!

Whether you’ve just heard about OME-NGFF and are curious to learn more or if you are working with it every day, there is something for everyone this year!
joelluethi.bsky.social Joel Lüthi @joelluethi.bsky.social · Aug 25
We're happy to announce the 2025 International OME-NGFF workshop 🎉

📅 Dates:
- Symposium: Nov 10–11, 2025
- Hackathon: Nov 12–14, 2025

📍 Location: Zurich, Switzerland

Full details & registration: www.biovisioncenter.uzh.ch/en/events/Up... 

#bioimaging #openscience #OMENGFF #OMEZarr

(1/x 🧵)
Visual of segmented human induced pluripotent stem cells with the key workshop dates: Symposium on November 10-11, Hackathon on November 12-14th in Zurich Switzerland
August 25, 2025 at 1:50 PM
Reposted by Christophe Dessimoz
torstenschwede.bsky.social
Save the Date #eccb2026: 31 August-4 September 2026

The 25th ECCB European Conference on Computational Biology will take place in Geneva, Switzerland, organized by @sib.swiss

For more information: eccb2026.org 🧪
August 22, 2025 at 7:28 PM
Reposted by Christophe Dessimoz
fbm-unil.bsky.social
🚨 News recherche
Des caractéristiques telles que la taille, le métabolisme ou encore le risque de développer certaines #maladies peuvent être influencées de manière différente selon que le variant #génétique en cause provient de la mère ou du père.
➡ www.unil.ch/news/1754464...
August 7, 2025 at 9:42 AM
Reposted by Christophe Dessimoz
ciriellolab.bsky.social
Congratulations to Zoltan @zkutalik.bsky.social , Robin @rjhfmstr.bsky.social and the whole team for this fantastic work out today in ‪@nature.com 👍 ‬ www.nature.com/articles/s41... Your parents' genome matters more than you think 😉https://www.unil.ch/dbc/en/home.html @fbm-unil.bsky.social
Parent-of-origin effects on complex traits in up to 236,781 individuals - Nature
A novel multistep strategy reveals how parent-of-origin effects shape complex traits in large-scale biobanks.
www.nature.com
August 7, 2025 at 10:23 AM
Reposted by Christophe Dessimoz
sib.swiss
Traits like disease risk can be affected differently, and in opposite ways, depending on which parent the genetic variant responsible comes from. Work led by SIB scientists @zkutalik.bsky.social & Robin Hofmeister at @unil.bsky.social/UniSanté & published in Nature👇

www.sib.swiss/news/the-imp...
The impact of genetic variants can depend on the parent they come from
Traits such as height, metabolism, and disease risk can be affected differently – and even in opposite directions – depending on whether the genetic variant responsible is inherited from the mothe...
www.sib.swiss
August 6, 2025 at 3:10 PM
Reposted by Christophe Dessimoz
mcgambetta.bsky.social
Join us in person or online for the 24th edition of the Gene Regulation Workshop at Uni Lausanne on Sept 1st, with an again fantastic group of speakers 🥳
Edouard Bertrand
Antonio Giraldez
Phillip Grote @phillipgrote.bsky.social
Susan Mango
Danny Nedialkova
Lucia Strader @luciastrader.bsky.social‬
August 4, 2025 at 11:28 AM
Reposted by Christophe Dessimoz
fbm-unil.bsky.social
Congrats to two of our groups @unil.bsky.social that are featured among the @sib.swiss Remarkable Outputs 2024 🎉 !

🏅 @dgfeller.bsky.social & Vincent Zoete
🏅 @dessimoz.bsky.social & Natasha Glover

➡️ Discover their projects here: www.sib.swiss/news/discove...
sib.swiss SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics @sib.swiss · Jul 22
💡 The SIB Remarkable Outputs 2024 are out !
This shortlist of the most outstanding works produced by SIB members in 2024 showcase the latest advances in the Swiss bioinformatics field. Attend their presentations at [BC]2!

👉 Discover this shortlist of outstanding works
www.sib.swiss/remarkable-o...
July 29, 2025 at 4:22 PM
dessimoz.bsky.social
Overheard at #ISMBECCB2025: “a digital twin is a mathematical model you’d like to get funded”.
July 29, 2025 at 4:08 PM
Reposted by Christophe Dessimoz
martinpacesa.bsky.social
I am super excited to announce that I will be starting my lab at the Department of Pharmacology of the University of Zurich in Switzerland next year!
July 25, 2025 at 7:48 AM
Reposted by Christophe Dessimoz
elixir-europe.org
📣 ELIXIR Director, Tim Hubbard, signed the correspondence “Invest in data resources to make FAIR a reality” in Nature together with @sib.swiss Director Christophe Dessimoz and two Nobel prize laureates.
Read more 👉 https://loom.ly/2bzh2MY

#ELIXIRFridayReads
July 25, 2025 at 9:01 AM