The St. Jude Children's Research Hospital KIDS (Knowledge in Data Science) BioHackathon is an annual event where diverse, multidisciplinary participants gather, collaborate, and build software-based solutions that address real-world needs during a fast-paced 3 day coding marathon. Hackathons foster new collaborations among community researchers, encourage the sharing of knowledge and ideas, and provide the ideal environment for learning new skills and testing risky ideas. Plus they're fun!
See the website for additional information, to view past projects/challenges, and to keep an eye out for next year's sign-ups!
- The first St. Jude BioHackathon was held internally in 2022, with 42 participants across 9 teams competed for the coveted Golden Floppy Disk. Our winning team led by Austin Faught and Jared Becksfort was composed of members from the Department of Radiation Oncology and Information Services with their project to model St. Jude's cutting edge proton beam and help calculate valid treatment trajectories.
- In 2023, the St. Jude BioHackathon was held in association with the KIDS23 (Knowledge in Data Science) symposium and dramatically expanded. 82 participants from 20 institutions, 5 companies, and every continent across 15 teams built projects spanning image analysis, multiomics integration, LLMs, and more, all competing for the new-found Golden Floppy Cubes in addition to the highly touted Golden Floppy Disk.
- Most Technically Impressive - CRCminer, led by Jared Andrews.
- Most Innovative - ML-assisted image annotation in napari, led by Liam Hallada.
- Best Overall - Seamless automated Azure data backup & retrieval, led by Dennis Kennetz.