Miss Marisa Loach
Research Student
Biography
My PhD research involves reanalysing public single-cell omics data to explore how cells change in conditions such as heart disease and cancer. In addition to performing my own analyses, I have written tutorials for the Galaxy Training Network (GTN) to enable others to reuse the workflows I developed.
I chair the Galaxy Community Board (GCB) and am a member of the Galaxy Executive Board (GEB). In these roles, I ensure that the voices of users and scientific communities are heard within the Galaxy governance.
I am also an active member of the ELIXIR Galaxy and Single-Cell communities. During an ELIXIR Staff Exchange, I spent six months learning from the Galaxy-EU team at the University of Freiburg.
As a BioFAIR fellow, I am promoting the creation and reuse of FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) workflows. My fellowship focuses on supporting users through the sometimes difficult transition from following tutorials to analysing their own datasets.
Projects
Galaxy–Bioconductor Single‑Cell BYOD Workshop and Interoperability Sprint (Open University, 2026)
This bursary will support my involvement in organising and delivering a three‑day Galaxy-Bioconductor single‑cell training and interoperability event hosted at the Open University. The bursary will cover necessary local costs that are not eligible under the ELIXIR Staff Exchange scheme, such as catering and visa fees for visiting contributors. This will enable wider participation and ensure that the event can run at a high standard without creating financial barriers for organisers or attendees. For the ELIXIR‑UK community, the event strengthens capacity in training delivery, workflow interoperability, and Galaxy server development. It directly supports ELIXIR‑UK’s work across Training, Tools and Interoperability Platforms by producing improved single‑cell tutorials on Galaxy Training Network (GTN) and TeSS, updated workflows on WorkflowHub , and clear recommendations for integrating Galaxy and Bioconductor resources in the UK node.
BioFAIR Fellowship
BioFAIR is delighted to announce the launch of our inaugural fellowship programme. BioFAIR Fellows will become ambassadors for excellence in research workflow and data management across the UK life science research community, and will contribute to the creation of the BioFAIR People Commons. This is an opportunity to be an early part of the newly established and ambitious BioFAIR programme, which aims to deliver a BioCommons infrastructure for the UK, including end-to-end FAIR research data management and analysis capabilities along with the necessary support and training for UK researchers working in the life sciences. A BioFAIR Fellowship will fund 20% of your time for one year to support ambassadorial activities within your institution, across your broader research domain and across the wider scientific community.
Publications
Journal Article
Galaxy single-cell & spatial omics community update: Navigating new frontiers in 2025 (2025)
Presentation / Conference Contribution
What do biologists want? Finding the best Workflow Management System (WMS) for users (2025)
Why Use Galaxy? Comparing the Options for User-Friendly Bioinformatics (2023)