DDLS Annual Conference 2026 workshops

During the second day of the DDLS Annual Conference 2026 held at Aula Magna at Stockholm University participants will have an opportunity to attend one of the workshops. The workshops are directed at researchers in data-driven life science in all career stages.

Please note that each workshop has a limited number of seats, on the first come first served basis. Those registered after the limit is reached will be placed on a waiting list (and get invited to register if a spot becomes available). The workshops will take place in various rooms of the main venue of the conference – Aula Magna at Stockholm University. The workshops start at 13:30 and last for up to 2 hours. Coffee/tea and fika will be served during the workshops.

Feel free to email datacentre@scilifelab.se with any questions about the workshops.

Workshops

Workshop 1. How to use LLMs to present results from your research project as a web application

Held by: team members at SciLifeLab Data Centre, TBA

Where and when: November 10, 2026 at 13:30-15:30, room Spelbomskan (Frescativägen 6 Stockholm)

Participants: max 30

Description: In case of many research projects, there is a need to present results not only as a traditional conference or journal paper but also as an interactive web-based tool that can be used by the readers or collaborators to e.g., explore the project data as interactive dashboards, test out performance of a machine learning model, input own arbitrary parameters in a simulation tool, etc. Building such web applications for research projects has become rather easy with the help of large language model based tools such as ChatGPT, Mistral, Claude, etc. This means that researchers can build and share web applications for their research projects without learning Python for web in depth (i.e. only using scientific Python knowledge). In this workshop, we will demonstrate a few examples of where a web-based application can be built to present the results. Subsequently, we will show how to package the resulting application and make it available to collaborators or general public through a URL using a SciLifeLab hosting service. Participants can follow along on their own laptops and either use our examples or build web-based applications for their own research projects during the workshop. We will be using a SciLifeLab hosted LLM tool during this workshop so that no data is shared with commercial companies.

Participants will need to bring a laptop to this workshop to be able to fully participate.

Workshop 2. Public hosting of Shiny apps: hands-on workshop

Held by: Arnold Kochari (SciLifeLab Data Centre)

Where and when: November 10, 2026 at 13:30-15:30, room Polstjärnan (Frescativägen 6 Stockholm)

Participants: max 30

Description: Researchers often create R Shiny applications as part of their projects and want to publish them as research output – as analysis tools with a graphical interface, as supplementary materials for publications, in order to make annotation easier, etc. In order to make Shiny apps available to the collaborators or general public, they need to be hosted somewhere and have a URL. We will start this workshop by giving an overview of what it means to create and publish Shiny apps as researcher in terms of institutional and funder requirements. We will then take a look at different hosting options for Shiny apps. During the hands-on part, we will focus on packaging Shiny apps for hosting as Docker images. Together with the participants, we will step-by-step package and publish an example Shiny app or the participants’ own Shiny app. If you are a researcher with an existing Shiny app you’d like to host, or if you plan to build a Shiny app in the future, this workshop is for you. If you already have a Shiny app you would like to host, bring it, and we will help you with it.

Expected outcomes: After this workshop, the participants will both have an understanding of working with Shiny apps within research projects in a Swedish university context and have practical knowledge about public hosting of Shiny apps.

Participants will need to bring a laptop to this workshop to be able to fully participate.