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With a virtual introduction by Steven Salzberg (Johns Hopkins University)

Primer: Kraken and KrakenUniq: the underlying computational system to classify reads

Talk abstract: Searching for associations between cancer and microbes has a rich history. Now, Bacteria and viruses are attributed with 20% of cancers worldwide. Searching for additional associations is undoubtedly an important undertaking with the potential to uncover opportunities for clinical benefit. 

Cancer tissue is increasingly being sequenced, providing a great opportunity for a thorough investigation. Accurately identifying taxa within human tissue, however, is if rife with technical challenges. This makes finding translational associations all the more problematic. 

This talk aims to provide a pedagogical overview of cancer metagenomics, highlighting some of the issues that the field faces, including misclassified host sequencing reads and issues with batch correction approaches.