Highlights of the 1st Latin American Conference of Women in Bioinformatics and Data Science

topics n Bioinformatics and disease 47 Genomics and evolution 41 Structural bioinformatics and biomolecular simulations 31 Deep learning, chemoinformatics, and drug discovery 20 Data mining and big data analysis 15 System biology 11 Education 3 Total 168 Fig 1. Distribution of participants in the congress on the basis of the information obtained from the registration. (A) Percentage of participation by region. (B) Representation of participants from industry and academy by gender. (C) Authorship position analysis by gender. Women in bioinformatics and data science Jiménez et al. The Biophysicist 2021; 2(3). DOI: 10.35459/tbp.2020.000174 101 D ow naded rom hp://m eridianenpress.com /the-biophysicist/artic9/2983209/i2578-6970-2-3-99.pdf by gest on 11 Jauary 2022 dynamics simulations, introduction to machine learning with R language with tidymodels, and introduction to R language with tidyverse. The workshops had a total of 159 attendees: 93 were female; 23 were male; and 45 did not indicate a gender in the registration form. Discussion and future perspectives The 1st Latin American Conference of Women in Bioinformatics and Data Science initiative aimed at creating spaces for discussion and training in our community, not only in science and technology, but also from a gender perspective. As we discussed before, science and technology are masculinized environments in which gender disparities still remain as part of the structure. The data generated, even in this particular event created by women and especially for women, reinforced the evidence of the predominance of men in leadership roles. The glass ceiling effect with respect to differential access to leadership positions for women and men is still evident (15– 18). In personal communication, the speakers and attendees expressed that they felt very comfortable and considered the conference venue to be a friendly environment to exchange, to learn, and to discuss ideas. In this report, we conclude from the great response of the community, evidenced by the large number of attendees, submitted abstracts and participating speakers, and the results obtained from our analysis, that there is a need for these types of spaces as provided through the 1st Latin American Conference of Women in Bioinformatics and Data Science. Women working in bioinformatics and data science are still waiting to be properly recognized. We need to create spaces that encourage participation and continuing education opportunities for women, and we need to analyze our research reality from a gender point of view, if we really want to contribute to reducing the gender disparity gap.