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I am at the FuGE users workshop at the moment which is being held in Manchester. The idea behind the workshop is that people who have used FuGE or extended FuGE for a specific use get together and share their experiences. I have used FuGE to develop GelML for the Proteomics Standards Initiative. GelML is one specification produced by the Gel-working group of the PSI, which is a data model to capture the use of gel electrophoresis in a proteomics experiment – but in theory it should be able to account for the use of gel electrophoresis independent of the use or domain. I presented GelML on the first day along with some discussion points I would like to see addressed over the two days. We have a small be varied set of users at the workshop covering the domains of flow cytometry, RNAi, proteomics and systems biology along with tool developers (Symba).

As the result of the workshop we hope to produce a set of recommendations or best practice guidelines to promote uptake and consistency of the use of FuGE, all of which is an honourable goal. In regard to this one interesting discussion was to provide a library or a set of desing templates for common constructs, such as instrument settings or the protocol to create buffers and solutions.

The workshop has been very productive so far and it has been very interesting to see how other domains have extended FuGE