Nextflow in the classroom: Innovating bioinformatics education in life sciences.

The increasing complexity of bioinformatics analyses and the need for reproducibility and portability have made workflow management a crucial skill not only for bioinformaticians but also for molecular biologists. Nextflow, which is already a game-changer in a wide range of scientific fields, has also the potential to revolutionize the way we teach bioinformatics and computational biology. In this talk, we will share our two-year experience in integrating Nextflow into academic curricula at the master's level. We will highlight the benefits of teaching workflow management to students who are learning both molecular biology and bioinformatics. We will discuss our methodology for teaching the basics of Nextflow as part of an academic curriculum, including the hands-on exercises we use and the concrete examples of applications in statistics, predictive modeling, and more mainstream bioinformatics analyses, such as RNA sequencing and variant calling. In this presentation, we will also cover how we implement Nextflow in the classroom using both high-performance computing (HPC) and cloud infrastructure. By equipping students with Nextflow skills, we aim to prepare them for the challenges of modern bioinformatics and computational biology, enabling them to design, execute, and reproduce complex analyses with ease. Our approach has the potential to improve the overall quality of bioinformatics education and enhance the employability of our graduates in the life sciences industry and beyond.