From tools to interoperable workflows for nucleic acid structures

Last week, researchers, software developers, domain experts and early-career scientists met in Prague for the Nucleic Acid Structure Annotation & Prediction Hackathon.

Over three focused days, participants worked on two connected challenges in structural bioinformatics: fragmented annotation and validation tools for nucleic-acid structures, and the need for better representation and visualization of Watson–Crick and non-Watson–Crick base-pair interactions.

The hackathon focused on practical community outputs: interoperable workflow prototypes, reusable examples, benchmark cases, documentation, and a public GitHub repository for continued collaboration.

Participants worked in two workstreams. One focused on annotation and validation workflows from mmCIF input, including modular workflow components and tool-output comparison. The second focused on non-Watson–Crick base-pair representation and linked 2D/3D visualization, including layered notation and interactive visualization prototypes.

The event brought together international expertise and created a strong basis for further community development, documentation, and follow-up collaboration.

We are pleased that Bohdan Schneider, Director of the Institute of Biotechnology of the Czech Academy of Sciences and an expert in nucleic-acid bioinformatics, actively took part in the hackathon and contributed to the scientific discussions.

Events like this show the value of bringing people together around practical scientific challenges, especially when the goal is to make tools, data, and workflows easier to connect, compare, and reuse.

NA Hackathon 2026 was funded by ELIXIR.