nf-cast - the bioinformatics podcast
by Seqera Labs
Bioinformatics is advancing at a rapid pace and plays a vital role in the research, as well as development of new targeted medications, personalized healthcare, and delivering better clinical outcomes. In this podcast, Rob Lalonde of Seqera discusses advancements at the intersection of biology and informatics with some of the world’s leading bioinformaticians and data scientists.
Episodes
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Episode 58: Writing Nextflow plugins in 2026
In this episode, Phil is joined by Ben Sherman, Jon Manning and Rike Hanssen to take a fresh look at Nextflow plugins, two years on from the plugin walkthrough in episode 35. They cover what plugins are for: sharing reusable functions across pipelines, hooking into workflow events with observers...
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Episode 57: Pipeline chaining, meta pipelines and automation (Part 2 of 2)
In episode 57 (March 2026), Phil is joined by Edmund Miller and Ben Sherman to discuss how recent and upcoming Nextflow language changes can make pipeline chaining and meta pipelines easier. The episode was split into two parts: this first part surveyed current solutions, listen to episode 56 to...
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Episode 56: Pipeline chaining, meta pipelines and automation (Part 1 of 2)
Episode 56 of The Nextflow Podcast (March 2026) focuses on pipeline chaining and meta pipelines in Nextflow, with guests Ben Sherman and Edmund Miller. The episode was split into two parts: this first part surveys current solutions, while part two will cover future Nextflow language changes. The...
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Episode 55: Terraform & Seqera
In episode 55 of the Nextflow podcast (February 2026), Phil Ewels is joined by Adam Talbot and Ken Brewer to discuss a new Seqera project: using Terraform to manage Seqera Platform configuration as infrastructure as code. They cover why reproducible, reliable infrastructure matters alongside...
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Episode 54: Fusion Snapshots, with Lorenzo Fontana
In this episode, Phil Ewels sits down with Lorenzo Fontana, an engineer at Seqera with deep expertise in Linux kernel internals, eBPF, and systems programming. Full transcript and summary blog post here: https://seqera.io/podcasts/episode-54-fusion-snapshots/ Lorenzo is the co-author of the...
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Episode 53: Highlights from 2025
The Nextflow Podcast is back! After a brief hiatus, Phil Ewels returns with a comprehensive look at everything that happened in 2025 across the Nextflow ecosystem. Joining Phil for this year-in-review are Rob Syme (Scientific Support Lead), Marcel Ribeiro Dantas (Senior Developer Advocate), and…
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Episode 52: Australian BioCommons
In Episode 52 of the Nextflow podcast, Phil Ewels is joined by Ziad Al Bkhetan and Steven Manos from the Australian BioCommons to explore how Nextflow and Seqera Platform are transforming bioinformatics research across Australia. Discover how the Australian BioCommons emerged as a national...
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Episode 51: Nextflow strict syntax
In Episode 51 of the Nextflow podcast, Phil Ewels and Ben Sherman discuss Nextflow's upcoming strict syntax - a significant evolution bringing clearer error messages and a more consistent language framework. They explore key changes including the separation of code from declarations, removal of...
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Episode 50: Imaging pipelines and analysis, with Krešimir Beštak
In this milestone 50th episode of the Nextflow podcast, host Phil Ewels sits down with Krešimir Beštak, a PhD student and active contributor to the nf-core community, to explore an exciting frontier in bioinformatics: microscopy and spatial omics. While Nextflow is traditionally associated with...
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Episode 49: Finding novel proteins at Seanome, with Olga Botvinnik
Join host Phil Ewels in Episode 49 of the Nextflow Podcast as he interviews Dr. Olga Botvinnik, founder and CEO of Seanome. Olga discusses her journey from studying at MIT to founding her non-profit research institute focused on marine genomics. Discover her groundbreaking work in annotating...
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Episode 48: Nextflow Summit Barcelona 2024 Highlights
In this episode of the Nextflow Podcast, we dive into highlights from the recent Nextflow Summit held in Barcelona in 2024. The summit featured an incredible range of talks, demonstrations, and discussions showcasing the latest advancements in workflows, data analysis, and community…
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Episode 47: New Nextflow language server & VS Code extension
In episode 47 of The Nextflow Podcast, Phil Ewels and Ben Sherman discuss the launch of the new Nextflow language server, a significant upgrade providing advanced code intelligence features such as code completion and error hints for VS Code users. They detail the benefits of formalizing Nextflow...
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Episode 46: Nextflow meets WDL— Comparing modern workflow languages
In this episode of Channels, the Nextflow podcast, host Geraldine from Seqera and her colleague Ben Sherman dive into the differences and similarities between Nextflow and the Workflow Description Language (WDL). They discuss the origins and development of WDL at the Broad Institute, the…
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Episode 45: tinybio - Nextflow x AI
In this episode of Channels, the Nextflow podcast, join us as we explore Nextflow and AI. Our special guest, Sasha from Seqera, shares his remarkable journey from the consumer tech industry to bioinformatics. Learn about the birth of TinyBio, its innovations in bioinformatics AI applications, and...
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Episode 44: Regulatory revolution - Open source software in pharma and clinical settings.
In episode 44 of the Nextflow Channels podcast, Phil Ewels welcomes Alex Pelzer— a key figure in the Nextflow and nf-core community. Alex shares his journey from academia to the pharmaceutical industry, highlighting the critical role of regulatory frameworks in bioinformatics. 🌟 Key Highlights:...
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Episode 43: Data Studios
In this episode we explore the new features of Seqera's Data Studios and Data Explorer, with Phil Ewels, Rob Newman and Rob Syme from Seqera. Discover how to use these tools for troubleshooting Nextflow pipelines, tertiary analysis and Nextflow development. We discuss the pain points that led to...
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Episode 42: Nextflow on the Road — ISMB 2024 in Montreal
A small but intrepid team of Seqerans recently attended the ISMB 2024 conference in Montreal, a great mix of computational biology and bioinformatics with a largely academic / research-focused audience. Join Geraldine Van der Auwera, Rob Syme and Florian Wuennemann for a lively discussion about…
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Episode 41: New syntax in Nextflow 24.04.
Join us in exploring the latest Nextflow release, 24.04. Phil Ewels and Ben Sherman dive deep into the new updates in Nextflow’s most recent version. We discuss advanced retry strategies, job arrays, resourceLimits, Singularity’s OCI mode, and the game-changing Workflow Output Definition. We’re...
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Episode 40: Origins of nf-core - SciLifeLab NGI
Join us to hear Phil Ewels chat with Maxime Garcia and Franziska Bonath about how nf-core started at the National Genomics Infrastructure (NGI) at SciLifeLab in Sweden.We chat about how the nf-core/sarek pipeline grew alongside and eventually joined nf-core,as well as the early days of nf-core...
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Episode 39: Spatial proteomics at Pixelgen
Tune in to hear all about Pixelgen Technologies - creators of a novel technology for doing single-cell spatial proteomics. We chat about how this fascinating technology works, what you can do with the data and why they chose to develop their analysis suite as an open-source nf-core pipeline.…
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Episode 38: Seqera Pipelines & Seqera Containers
Evan Floden (CEO and co-founder of Seqera) joins Phil Ewels (Product Manager for OSS at Seqera) to talk about two of the big announcements at the recent Nextflow Summit Boston 2024 - Seqera Pipelines and Seqera Containers. We dive into what these two new community offerings are, why we built them...
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Episode 37: The nf-core / EuroFAANG pre-print
Join us as we discuss the brand new @nf-core / EuroFaang pre-print! 🔥 We chat to some of the key authors, covering the background to the paper, the main messages and how EuroFAANG and nf-core have collaborated. 🧬 👩🏻🔬
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Episode 36: The Nextflow Ambassadors Program
Join us in this episode of the Channels podcast for a closer look at the Nextflow Ambassadors Program. Marcel Ribeiro-Dantas and Geraldine Van der Auwera discuss the origins of the program, recent highlights and next steps, including the open call for new Ambassadors, which will close June 14....
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Episode 35: Nextflow plugins - A plugin development walkthrough
This podcast episode is quite different to normal. Rather than an interview or a discussion, you'll get to watch as Ben Sherman guides Phil Ewels through the process of creating a new Nextflow Plugin from scratch. Right from the first line of code to creating a release and publishing the plugin....
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Episode 34: Nextflow in materials science with Jakob Zeitler
In this episode of Channels, we talk to Jakob Zeitler - Head of R&D at Matterhorn Studios. We dive into how they use Nextflow and Seqera Platform for material science research, paving the way for cheaper and more eco-friendly products for the future ⚗️👩🏻🔬🔬🌎 It may not be bioinformatics, but...
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Episode 33: GA4GH interoperability standards and Nextflow
In this episode of the podcast, Geraldine and Ben talk about the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health (GA4GH) and its efforts to develop interoperability standards for pipelining infrastructure. If the words TES, WES, TRS and DRS are just as much alphabet soup to you, tune in to learn all…
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Episode 32: Interview with Josh Chorlton
In this episode of Channels, we talk to Josh Chorlton - CTO & cofounder of BugSeq Bioinformatics Inc. We talk about how BugSeq got into using Nextflow and MultiQC and the tips and tricks that they've employed to push scale and performace of their tools to the limit. We cover topics like testing…
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Episode 31: Learning Nextflow in 2024
A recap of our current training formulas, how we got here and where we’re heading to next. Join us in this episode of the Channels podcast as Geraldine Van der Auwera and Chris Hakkaart discuss options for learning Nextflow in 2024. A recap of our current training formulas, how we got here and...
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Episode 30: Fusion file system
In this episode of Channels, we talk to Paolo Di Tommaso (creator of Nextflow, Seqera CTO & cofounder) and Jordi Deu Pons (software engineer @ Seqera) about Fusion - a file system written specifically for Nextflow.
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Episode 29: Nextflow 2023 - 2024
Join us in this episode of the Channels podcast to get a recap of some of the biggest features to be added to Nextflow in 2023 and take a look at some of the things coming in 2024. We tried to do this in Episode 27 but ended up spending nearly all the time discussing community and nf-core, so…
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Episode 28: Seqera and Nextflow in public health — Interview with Kelsey Florek
Rob Lalonde of Seqera interviews Kelsey Florek, Senior Genomics and Data Scientist at the Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene. In this interview, Rob and Kelsey discuss how genomic surveillance has changed since the COVID pandemic, and how Seqera Platform and Nextflow pipelines have…
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Episode 27: 2023 - Year in review
Today in the Channels podcast, we're talking about what happened this year in the Nextflow world, with particular emphasis on the many exciting developments in nf-core. We cover: - Community growth (with stats and graphs!) - The evolution of nf-core governance - The latest crop of nf-core…
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Episode 26: Code & community at the 2023 nf-core hackathon
In a special edition of the Channels Podcast, Geraldine Van der Auwera interviews four members of the Nextflow community attending the 2023 nf-core hackathon: Raquel Manzano, Edmund Miller, Rieke Hanssen and Francesco Lescai. Recorded in-person at the Nextflow Summit Barcelona, we hear a bit…
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Episode 25: Interview - Geraldine Van der Auwera
In a special edition of the Channels Podcast, Phil Ewels chats to Geraldine Van der Auwera! Recorded in-person at the Nextflow Summit Barcelona, we hear a bit about Geraldine’s background - her work at the Broad with GATK and WDL, and the path that brought her to Seqera and the Nextflow…
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Episode 24: Nextflow runtime updates - Requesting resources
Today in the Channels podcast, we're talking about computing resources... Ben Sherman takes us through new and upcoming runtime improvements in the Nextflow, leading to better performance fine tuning and simpler syntax for pipelines. We cover: Fractional CPU requests resourceLimits directive (to...
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Episode 23: Clever containers - Wave & Wavelit
Software containers using Docker / Singularity are a core part of modern data science, found at the heart of Nextflow pipelines. On today's show, we bring on the creator of Nextflow – Paolo Di Tommaso – to tell us the good, the bad and the ugly of containers. He talks about "Wave", one of the...
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Episode 22: Nextflow language updates - Better error messages
In this episode of the Channels podcast, it’s all about developer experience! Ben Sherman takes us through new and upcoming language improvements in the Nextflow language which will help people writing Nextflow pipelines write code faster, with fewer errors, and of course with beautifully…
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Episode 21: Live debugging Nextflow, Ambassadors & Training
Ever wanted to peer inside Nextflow as it runs your pipeline? We play with an interactive debugger to do just that. Also, a first peek at a new Nextflow Ambassador program, plus a revamped hands-on Nextflow training course.
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Episode 20: Reproducible runtimes with the Tower CLI; new data tools on the Seqera roadmap.
In this episode of the Channels podcast we have Evan Floden (Seqera Labs CEO) and Harshil Patel (head of scientific development at Seqera Labs) on the show! We talk about: 0:00 - Introduction 1:42 - History of automated testing in nf-core 4:10 - Using Tower CLI with GitHub actions in nf-core 5:09…
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Episode 19: Nextflow runtime updates - Talking tasks
In today's episode of the Channels Podcast, we talk to Seqera software engineer Ben Sherman about what's going on "under the hood" with Nextflow. We touch on task provenance, cloud cache databases and task / sub-workflow grouping. Gotta cache 'em all! 0:00 - Introduction 2:21 - Task provenance...
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Episode 18: Learning Nextflow in 2023
In this News and Views episode, Chris Hakkaart and Marcel Ribeiro-Dantas talk to Rob Syme about the exciting new Nextflow training material and ways to learn Nextflow in 2023.
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Episode 17: Nextflow language updates - Power to the processes
In this "News & Views" episode of Channels we talk to Nextflow developer Ben Sherman about some exciting new language features (hopefully) coming soon to Nextflow: 0:00 - Introduction 2:42 - Default values for process inputs 11:59 - Arity, nullable options for input and output paths 28:17 - Named...
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Episode 16: Infrastructure team: nf-validation and nf-core components
Tune to to Episode 16 of the Channels podcast to hear from the nf-core community infrastructure team: Matthias Hörtenhuber and Júlia Mir Pedrol. In a bumper episode, we discuss the new "nf-validation" Nextflow plugin (https://nextflow-io.github.io/nf-validation/) and talk nf-core components:...
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Episode 15: Coming soon to Nextflow - From command-line to cleanup.
In this News and Views episode, Phil Ewels talks to Ben Sherman about upcoming features in core Nextflow development: a new CLI v2 interface; submission of job arrays and intermediate file cleanup during runs.
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Episode 14: Summer 2023 podcast season, Nextflow release highlights
In this "News & Views" episode of Channels we kick off the Summer 2023 series of Channels podcasts and go through some of the highlights from the latest Nextflow releases.
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Episode 13: Nextflow turns 10!
A special edition of Channels, Phil Ewels talks to Paolo Di Tommaso and Evan Floden about the past, present and future of Nextflow as the project celebrates its 10th anniversary.
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Episode 12: S3 file names, the Spack package manager support and local hackathon sites
In this "News & Views" episode of Channels we talk about improvements to handling S3 file names, support for the Spack package manager, and local hackathon sites.
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Episode 11: The Sarus container engine, staging outputs and the GITHUB_TOKEN
In this "News & Views" episode of Channels we talk about the new Sarus container engine, staging outputs using 'rclone' and 'fcp', and using GITHUB_TOKEN to access private repositories.
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Episode 10: The Flux executor, bytesize transcripts and improved error messaging
In this "News & Views" episode of Channels we talk about the new Flux executor for Nextflow, the initiative to add transcripts to all nf-core bytesize videos, and some improvements for error messaging when using Nextflow.
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Episode 9: End of DSL1 and chatting to bots
In this "News & Views" episode of Channels we talk about how support for Nextflow DSL1 is going to be dropped and what that means for you. We also explore the wondrous world of AI and ML with a few examples of recent pipelines we've written.
About this show
Bioinformatics is advancing at a rapid pace and plays a vital role in the research, as well as development of new targeted medications, personalized healthcare, and delivering better clinical outcomes. In this podcast, Rob Lalonde of Seqera discusses advancements at the intersection of biology and informatics with some of the world’s leading bioinformaticians and data scientists.
Hosted by
Seqera Labs