FAIR Software Award for bioinformatic annotation software

At Data Days Lower Saxony 2025, Corinna Thoben, a doctoral student at the Institute for Data Science in Biomedicine, together with Professor Boas Pucker from the Plant Biotechnology and Bioinformatics Working Group at the University of Bonn (PuckerLab), were honored with the FAIR Software Award Lower Saxony 2025. The jury honored the research software bHLH_annotator, a freely available pipeline for the automated annotation of an important group of plant gene regulators.

 

In bioinformatics, annotation refers to the process of assigning structural or functional information to genome sequences, such as identifying genes in the genome and determining their possible function. The bHLH_annotator supports researchers in identifying and characterizing genes of the basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH) gene family. This gene family plays a central role in the regulation of numerous biological processes, and elucidating its function can help to better understand these processes.

The award is presented by the Lower Saxony Research Data Management Initiative and recognizes projects that adhere to the FAIR principles—findability, accessibility, interoperability, and reusability—in their implementation, thereby improving the usability of publicly available software. Data Days Lower Saxony also offered various workshops and opportunities for exchange and networking to further promote collaboration in the field of research data management.