Curation Beyond Biocuration: A perspective from Plant Reactome

Submitted by Sushma_Naithani on Thu, 03/19/2026 - 15:17

March 9, 2026

The International Society for Biocuration  hosted a dynamic session in its  Virtual Conference Series on March 9, 2026, titled “Curation Beyond Biocuration.” The event brought together experts from diverse disciplines to explore how data curation is evolving across fields such as linguistics, archaeology, immunology, and biodiversity informatics.

The session featured four invited talks that underscored both the opportunities and complexities of managing and harmonizing data in increasingly interdisciplinary contexts.

The talks included:

  • Francesca Masini (University of Bologna, lightning talk) – When your data talks back: Data curation in linguistics
  • Vanessa Baratella (University of Ljubljana, lightning talk) – From Linguistic Diversity to Data Interoperability: Archaeological Challenges for Harmonizing Terminology and Knowledge Organization
  • Sebastian Duesing (La Jolla Institute for Immunology, lightning talk)
  • Emilie Pasche (Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, long talk) – From SIBiLS to BiodiversityPMC: a PMC superset with advanced functionalities

A multidisciplinary panel further enriched the discussion, focusing on the broader implications of curation beyond traditional biocuration. Panelists included Damiano Testa (University of Warwick; mathematics), Gavin Michael Farrell (University of Padua; machine learning), Samantha Pearman-Kanza (University of Southampton; Physical Sciences Data Infrastructure (PSDI)), and Sushma Naithani (Oregon State University; Plant Reactome Knowledgebase).

Discussions during the panel highlighted the growing importance of interoperability, persistent identifiers, and cross-domain knowledge organization, as well as the need for collaborative frameworks that extend beyond individual disciplines.

The event underscored a central theme: as data becomes more complex and interconnected, the role of curators is expanding—requiring not only technical expertise but also cross-disciplinary understanding and global collaboration.

Recordings of the session are available  HERE  online for those interested in revisiting the discussions.