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Dr. James A. Fellows Yates

Bioinformatician

Education

PhD in Bioinformatics

Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena (Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History / Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, 🇩🇪)
2015 - 2022

MSc in Naturwissenschaftliches Archäologie

Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen (🇩🇪)
2013 - 2015

BSc (Hons) in Biomolecular Archaeology

University of York (🇬🇧)
2010 - 2013

Languages

  • English (Native)
  • German (B2)
  • Spanish (Basic)
  • Catalan (Basic)

Career Profile

James is a biomolecular archaeologist turned bioinformatician and research software engineer. His work currently focuses on the development of pipelines and tools for high-throughput analysis of next generation sequencing data for metagenomics, and developing metadata infrastructure for ancient DNA sequences. He leads the development and is a contributor to a range of open-source metagenomics Nextflow pipelines and as well as R packages.

He is a core member of the nf-core bioinformatics pipeline initiative and the founder of the SPAAM community of ancient metagenomics researchers, the latter of which he runs a collaborative project improving access to ancient metagenomic data via metadata standardisation.

He was also a trustee of the International Society for Biomolecular Archaeology and webmaster.

His general passion is for open science, spanning: open-data, open-software, open-protocols, and community-based development.

Post Doctoral Researcher

Post Doctoral Researcher

2021 - Present
Department of Palaeobiotechnology, Leibniz-Institut für Naturstoff-Forschung und Infektionsbiologie Hans-Knöll-Institut / Microbiome Sciences Group, Department of Archaeogenetics, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology

Development and training of/in metagenomic bioinformatic tools and pipelines. Development of standardised metadata schemas. Sample and Next Generation Sequencing Data and project management and organisation. Establishment, organisation and teaching of/at a graduate-level summer school. Supervision of graduate students.

Scientific Researcher

2020-2021
Institut für Vor- und Frühgeschichtliche Archäologie und Provinzialrömische Archäologie, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München

Development of approaches and tools for novel archaeological metagenomic data for an ERC project.

Research Assistant

2015
AG Biogeologie, Biogeologie, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen

Data processing:

  • Sample preparation and logging
  • Collagen extraction
  • Data digitalisation and cleaning

Projects

A list of the main set of non-software open source projects I am currently working on or have developed. See OSS Contributions for software.

MInAS - Founder and co-lead of the MInAS project that aims to develop standardised metadata reporting schemes of ancient DNA samples and sequencing data via community-based consensus and training.
AncientMetagenomeDir - Founder and co-load of a community-curated repository of standardised metadata and download information for all publically available ancient (microbial) (meta)genome
Introduction to Ancient Metagenomics (SPAAM Summer School and Textbook) - Founder and organiser of a yearly practical summer school/block course introducting graduate and doctoral students to the basic bioinformatic workflows ancient metagenomics. All teaching material is dervied on a community curated textbook
Little Book of Smiley Plots - Founder of a light-hearted reference book of ancient DNA damage plots and their causes

OSS Contributions

All software projects contributed to date are OSS. See Projects for non-software.

nf-core/taxprofiler - Lead developer of a Nextflow pipeline for simultaenous multi-taxonomic profiling of shotgun metagenomic data.
nf-core/createtaxdb - Lead developer of a Nextflow pipeline for parallelised and automated construction of metagenomic classifier databases of different tools .
nf-core/mag - Maintainer to a metagenomic _de novo_ assembly and binning pipeline written in Nextflow.
nf-core/funcscan - Senior developer of a Nextflow pipeline for the screening of functional components and natural products from assembled contigs.
nf-core/eager - Co-lead developer of a fully reproducible and state-of-the-art Nextflow ancient DNA analysis pipeline for genomic analysis and pathogen screening.
cuperdec - R Package for calculating and visualising cumulative percent 'decay' curves (a method I developed during my PhD), which are typically calculated from metagenomic taxonomic profiles. Available on CRAN.
MEx-IPA - This R shiny app is a modified implementation of the metric visualisation script of the HOPS pipeline, with additional interactive plot functionality.

Publications

My publications, preprints, and other publications

  • Ancient DNA data hold insights into past organisms and ecosystems - handle them with more care
    • Bergström, M., Fellows Yates, J. A., & Warinner, C.
    (2024) Nature (p. 296–298).
  • Empowering bioinformatics communities with Nextflow and nf-core
    • Langer, B. E., Amaral, A., Baudement, M.-O., Bonath, F., Charles, M., Chitneedi, P. K., Clark, E. L., Di Tommaso, P., Djebali, S., Ewels, P. A., Eynard, S., Fellows Yates, J. A., Fischer, D., Floden, E. W., Foissac, S., Gabernet, G., Garcia, M. U., Gillard, G., Gundappa, M. K., … nf-core community.
    (2024) bioRxiv (p. 2024.05.10.592912).
  • Facilitating accessible, rapid, and appropriate processing of ancient metagenomic data with AMDirT
    • Borry, M., Forsythe, A., Valtueña Andrades, A., Hübner, A.,; Ibrahim, A., Quagliariello, A., White, A. E., Kocher, A., Vågene‬, Å. J., Bartholdy, B. P., Spurīte, D., Ponce-Soto, Gabriel Y.,; Neumann, G., Huang, I-T., Light, I., Velsko, I. M., Jackson, I., Frangenberg, J., Serrano, J. G., Fumey, J., Özdoğan, K. T.; Blevins, K. E., Daly, K. G., Lopopolo, M., Moraitou, M., Michel, M., van Os, M., Bravo-Lopez, M. J., Sarhan, M. S., Dagtas, N. D., Oskolkov, N., Smith, O. S., Lebrasseur, O., Rozwalak, P., Eisenhofer, R., Wasef, S., Ramachandran, S. L., Vanghi, V., Warinner, C., Fellows Yates, J. A.
    (2024) F1000.
  • TAXPASTA: TAXonomic Profile Aggregation and STAndardisation
    • Beber, M. E., Borry, M., Stamouli, S., Fellows Yates, J. A.
    (2023) Journal of Open Source Software.
  • Natural products from reconstructed bacterial genomes of the Middle and Upper Paleolithic
    • Klapper, M., Hübner, A., Ibrahim, A., Wasmuth, I., Borry, M., Haensch, V. G., Zhang, S., Al-Jammal, W. K., Suma, H., Fellows Yates, J. A., Frangenberg, J., Velsko, I. M., Chowdhury, S., Herbst, R., Bratovanov, E. V., Dahse, H.-M., Horch, T., Hertweck, C., González Morales, M. R., Straus, L.G., Vilotijevic, I., Warinner, C., Stallforth, P.
    (2023) Science.
  • Ecology, Not Host Phylogeny, Shapes the Oral Microbiome in Closely Related Species.
    • Moraitou, M., Forsythe, A., Fellows Yates, J. A., Brealey, J. C., Warinner, C., & Guschanski, K.
    (2022). Molecular Biology and Evolution, 39(12).
  • Ecology, not host phylogeny, shapes the oral microbiome in closely related species of gorillas.
    • Moraitou, M., Forsythe, A., Fellows Yates, J. A., Brealey, J. C., Warinner, C., & Guschanski, K.
    (2022). bioRxiv (p. 2022.06.06.494923).
  • Ancient Metagenomic Studies: Considerations for the Wider Scientific Community.
    • Der Sarkissian, C., Velsko, I. M., Fotakis, A. K., Vågene, Å. J., Hübner, A., & Fellows Yates, J. A.
    (2021). mSystems, 6(6), e0131521.
  • The evolution and changing ecology of the African hominid oral microbiome.
    • Fellows Yates, J. A., Velsko, I. M., Aron, F., Posth, C., Hofman, C. A., Austin, R. M., Parker, C. E., Mann, A. E., Nägele, K., Arthur, K. W., Arthur, J. W., Bauer, C. C., Crevecoeur, I., Cupillard, C., Curtis, M. C., Dalén, L., Bonilla, M. D.-Z., Carlos Díez Fernández-Lomana, J., Drucker, D. G., … Warinner, C.
    (2021). PNAS 118(20), e2021655118.
  • Reproducible, portable, and efficient ancient genome reconstruction with nf-core/eager.
    • Fellows Yates, J. A., Lamnidis, T. C., Borry, M., Andrades Valtueña, A., Fagernäs, Z., Clayton, S., Garcia, M. U., Neukamm, J., & Peltzer, A.
    (2021). PeerJ, 9, e10947.
  • Community-curated and standardised metadata of published ancient metagenomic samples with AncientMetagenomeDir.
    • Fellows Yates, J. A., Andrades Valtueña, A., Vågene, Å. J., Cribdon, B., Velsko, I. M., Borry, M., Bravo-Lopez, M. J., Fernandez-Guerra, A., Green, E. J., Ramachandran, S. L., Heintzman, P. D., Spyrou, M. A., Hübner, A., Gancz, A. S., Hider, J., Allshouse, A. F., Zaro, V., & Warinner, C.
    (2021). Scientific Data, 8(1), 31.
  • Do I have something in my teeth? The trouble with genetic analyses of diet from archaeological dental calculus.
    • Mann, A. E., Fellows Yates, J. A., Fagernäs, Z., Austin, R. M., Nelson, E. A., & Hofman, C. A.
    (2020). Quaternary International
  • Reproducible, portable, and efficient ancient genome reconstruction with nf-core/eager.
    • Fellows Yates, J. A., Lamnidis, T. C., Borry, M., Andrades Valtueña, A., Fagernäs, Z., Clayton, S., Garcia, M. U., Neukamm, J., & Peltzer, A.
    (2020). bioRxiv (p. 2020.06.11.145615).
  • Community-curated and standardised metadata of published ancient metagenomic samples with AncientMetagenomeDir.
    • Fellows Yates, J. A., Valtueña, A. A., Vågene, A. J., Cribdon, B., Velsko, I. M., Borry, M., Bravo-López, M. J., Fernandez-Guerra, A., Green, E. J., Ramachandran, S. L., Heintzman, P. D., Spyrou, M. A., Hübner, A., Gancz, A. S., Hider, J., Allshouse, A. F., & Warinner, C.
    (2020). bioRxiv (p. 2020.09.02.279570).
  • Micro Methods for Megafauna: Novel Approaches to Late Quaternary Extinctions and Their Contributions to Faunal Conservation in the Anthropocene.
    • Swift, J. A., Bunce, M., Dortch, J., Douglass, K., Faith, J. T., Fellows Yates, J. A., Field, J., Haberle, S. G., Jacob, E., Johnson, C. N., Lindsey, E., Lorenzen, E. D., Louys, J., Miller, G., Mychajliw, A. M., Slon, V., Villavicencio, N. A., Waters, M. R., Welker, F., … Roberts, P.
    (2019). Bioscience, 69(11), 877-887.
  • Microbial differences between dental plaque and historic dental calculus are related to oral biofilm maturation stage.
    • Velsko, I. M., Fellows Yates, J. A., Aron, F., Hagan, R. W., Frantz, L. A. F., Loe, L., Martinez, J. B. R., Chaves, E., Gosden, C., Larson, G., & Warinner, C.
    (2019). Microbiome, 7(1), 102.
  • Differential preservation of endogenous human and microbial DNA in dental calculus and dentin.
    • Mann, A. E., Sabin, S., Ziesemer, K., Vågene, Å. J., Schroeder, H., Ozga, A. T., Sankaranarayanan, K., Hofman, C. A., Fellows Yates, J. A., Salazar-García, D. C., Frohlich, B., Aldenderfer, M., Hoogland, M., Read, C., Milner, G. R., Stone, A. C., Lewis, C. M., Jr, Krause, J., Hofman, C., Bos, K.I., Warinner, C.
    (2018). Scientific Reports, 8(1), 9822.
  • Central European Woolly Mammoth Population Dynamics: Insights from Late Pleistocene Mitochondrial Genomes.
    • Fellows Yates, J. A., Drucker, D. G., Reiter, E., Heumos, S., Welker, F., Münzel, S. C., Wojtal, P., Lázničková-Galetová, M., Conard, N. J., Herbig, A., Bocherens, H., & Krause, J.
    (2017) Scientific Reports, 7(1), 17714
  • A Robust Framework for Microbial Archaeology
    • Warinner, C., Herbig, A., Mann, A., Fellows Yates, J. A., Weiß, C. L., Burbano, H. A., Orlando, L., & Krause, J.
    (2017) Annual Review of Genomics and Human Genetics, 18, 321-356

    "> Conferences and Invited Talks

    Conference poster: Integrated microbiome sequencing data analysis with nf-core

    2024
    Fellows Yates, J. A., Stamouli, S., Andersson-Li, L., Beber, M. E., Borry, M., Miller, C., Downie, J., Lundin, D., Straub, D., Krakau, S., Hübner, A., Ibrahim, A., Frangenberg, J., Perelo, L., Stallforth, P., Warinner C., nf-core community

    NFDI4Microbiota Anual Meeting, Dec 2024, Leipzig, Germany

    Conference poster: Scalable and efficient data analysis pipelines for clinical metagenomics from nf-core

    2024
    Fellows Yates, J. A., Stamouli, S., Andersson-Li, L., Beber, M. E., Borry, M., Miller, C., Downie, J., Lundin, D., Straub, D., Krakau, S., Hübner, A., Ibrahim, A., Frangenberg, J., Perelo, L., Stallforth, P., Warinner C., nf-core community

    9th International Conference on Clinical Metagenomics, November 2024, Geneva, Switzerland

    Conference poster: Integrated metagenomic data processing with nf-core

    2024
    Fellows Yates, J. A., Stamouli, S., Andersson-Li, L., Beber, M. E., Borry, M., Miller, C., Downie, J., Lundin, D., Straub, D., Krakau, S., Hübner, A., Ibrahim, A., Frangenberg, J., Perelo, L., Stallforth, P., Warinner C., nf-core community

    Nextflow Summit, October 2024, Barcelona, Spain

    Online Talk: Special Interest Group meta-omics

    2024
    Fellows Yates, J.A.

    Series: nf-core bytesize talks, Sep 2024, Online

    Online Talk: Six tips for community-based pipeline development

    2024
    Fellows Yates, J.A.

    Series: nf-core bytesize talks, Jul 2024, Online

    Workshop: MInAS Presentations and Workshops

    2024
    Fellows Yates, J. A.,

    MInAS Workshop, June 2024, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Online talk: Improving reporting and reproducibility of lab work in biomolecular archaeology (with protocols.io)

    2024
    Fellows Yates, J. A.,

    ISBA Community Seminar Series, May 2024, Online

    Invited Instructor: Bioinformatic workflows applied to aeDNA data

    2024
    Fellows Yates, J. A., Pedersen, M. W.

    Bioinformatic workflows applied to aeDNA data Workshop, Februrary 2024, Adelaide, Australia

    Conference talk: Building a community-based consensus for ancient sequencing data metadata reporting with MInAS

    2023
    Fellows Yates, J. A.,

    9th International Symposium for Biomolecular Archaeology, September 2023, Tartu, Estonia

    Conference talk: Metadata and smiley plots: the latest community projects from the SPAAM

    2023
    Fellows Yates, J.A.

    5th Standards Precautions, and Advances in Ancient Metagenomics (SPAAM5), September 2023, Tartu, Estonia

    Invited Talk: Bioinformatic Resources for (Ancient) Metagenomics

    2023
    Fellows Yates, J. A.,

    sedaDNA Society Yearly Meeting, June 2023, Potsdam, Germany

    Invited Talk: Community-curated NGS analysis pipelines

    2023
    Fellows Yates, J. A.,

    Next Generation Sequencing Competence Network Yearly Workshop, April 2023, Tübingen, Germany

    Invited Talk: Introduction to the SPAAM community and open-science initiatives

    2022
    Fellows Yates, J. A.,

    SedaDNA Society, Pacific Seminar Series, October 2022, Online

    Conference Poster: Efficient parallel taxonomic profiling for metagenomics with nf-core/taxprofiler

    2022
    Fellows Yates, J. A., Beber, M. E., Stamouli, S., Mesilaakso, L., Normark, T., Ou, J., Christensen, T.A., Jamy, M., Borry, M., Stępień, R, & nf-core community

    Nextflow Summit, October 2022, Barcelona Spain

    Conference Talk: cuperdec: assessing endogenous community preservation in (ancient) microbiome samples through cumulative percent decay

    2022
    Fellows Yates, J. A.

    Standards Precautions, and Advances in Ancient Metagenomics 2022 (SPAAM4), October 2022, Online

    Conference Poster: Improving accessiblity to ancient microbiome data beyond palaeogenomics

    2022
    Fellows Yates, J. A., SPAAM community, & nf-core Community

    Applied Hologenomics, October 2022, Bilbao, Spain (Presented by supervisor due to sickness)

    Online Talk: nf-core inkscape and tube map diagrams

    2022
    Fellows Yates, J.A.

    Series: nf-core bytesize talks, Jul 2022, Online

    Online Talk: gather.town

    2022
    Fellows Yates, J.A.

    Series: nf-core bytesize talks, Mar 2022, Online

    Invited Talk: Open Science Initiatives in Ancient (Meta)genomics

    2022
    Fellows Yates, J.A.

    Palaeoproteomics Section, GLOBE Institute, Copenhagen, Denmark, Apr 2022, Online

    Invited Talk: nf-core/eager: High-throughput and scalable palaeogenomics using nf-core/eager

    2021
    Fellows Yates, J.A.,

    Series: NGI Sweden Outreach (Ancient DNA), November 2021, Online

    Online Talk: nf-core/eager

    2021
    Fellows Yates, J.A.

    Series: nf-core bytesize talks, Oct 2021, Online

    Conference Talk: High-throughput and scalable ancient metagenomic analysis using nf-core/eager

    2021
    Fellows Yates, J.A.

    Standards Precautions, and Advances in Ancient Metagenomics 2021 (SPAAM3), September 2021, Online

    Conference Poster: nf-core/eager: Reproducible, portable, and efficient ancient genome reconstruction

    2021
    Fellows Yates, J.A., Lamnidis, T.C., Borry, M., Andrades Valtueña, A., Fagernäs, Z., Clayton, S., Garcia M.U, Neukamm, J., Peltzer, A.

    International Symposium for Biomolecular Archaeology (ISBA9), June 2021, Online

    Online Talk: Making a new institutional profile (nf-core bytesize)

    2021
    Fellows Yates, J.A.

    Series: nf-core bytesize talk, Apr 2021, Online

    Conference Poster: Improving access to ancient metagenomic data with the community-curated metadata repository AncientMetagenomeDir

    2021
    Fellows Yates, J. A., Andrades Valtueña, A., Vågene, Å. J., Cribdon, B., Velsko, I. M., Borry, M., Bravo-Lopez, M. J., Fernandez-Guerra, A., Green, E. J., Ramachandran, S. L., Heintzman, P. D., Spyrou, M. A., Hübner, A., Gancz, A. S., Hider, J., Allshouse, A. F., Zaro, V., & Warinner, C.

    Wellcome Trust Connecting Science - Ancient Biomolecules of Plants, Animals, and Microbes, March 2021, Online

    Conference Talk: Towards standards in metadata reporting in ancient metagenomic studies: experiences from AncientMetagenomeDir

    2020
    Towards standards in metadata reporting in ancient metagenomic studies: experiences from AncientMetagenomeDir

    Standards Precautions, and Advances in Ancient Metagenomics 2020 (SPAAM2), September 2020, Online

    Conference Talk: Reconstruction of Oral Microbiomes from Extinct and Extant Anthropoids through ancient DNA

    2018
    Fellows Yates. J.A.; Aron, F.; Velsko, I.; Arthur, J.; Austin, R.M.; Crevecoeur, I.; Dalén, L.; Gonzalez Morales M.R.; Guschanski K.; Henry, A.G.; Hofman, C.A.; Humphrey, L.T.; Lewis, C.M.; Mann, A.E.; Nägele, K.; Parker, C.E.; Posth, C.; Rougier, H.; Sankaranarayan, K.; Semal, P., Stock, J.; Strauss, L.G.; Weedman Arthur, K.; Wrangham, R.W; Curtis, M.C; Diez, J.C.; Gibbon, V.E.; Menedez, M.; Peresani, M.; Roksandic, M.; Walker, M.J.; Power, R.C.; Salazar-Garcia, D.C.; Krause, J; Herbig, A.; Warinner. C.

    International Symposium for Biomolecular Archaeology (ISBA8), September 2018, Jena, Germany

    Conference Talk: Palaeogenomic Investigation Of 50,000 Years Of The Human Oral Microbiome In The Iberian Mediterranean

    2018
    Fellows Yates, J.A.; Salazar-García D.C.; Hofman, C.A.; Aron, F.; Power, R.C.; Benítez de Lugo Enrich, L.; Haber, M.; García Atiénzar, G.;Oms, X.; Benito, M.; Avilés Fernández, A.; Sanz, M.; Barciela González, V.; Valero Tévar, M.A.; Gallego Valle D.; Zarzalejos Prieto, M.; Giner Iranzo D.;Hevia Gómez P.; Peña Ruiz, C.; Esteban Borrajo, G.; Molero García, J.; Díez, J.C.; Daura, J.; Lomba-Maurandi, J.; Menéndez M.; Hernández Pérez, M.; Villaverde Bonilla, V.; Krause, J; Herbig, A.; Warinner, C.

    Annual Meeting of the European Association for Archaeologists (EAA 2018), September 2018, Barcelona, Spain

    Conference Poster: Reconstruction of Oral Microbiomes from Extinct and Extant Anthropoids through ancient DNA

    2018
    Fellows Yates. J.A.; Aron, F.; Velsko, I.; Arthur, J.; Austin, R.M.; Crevecoeur, I.; Dalén, L.; Gonzalez Morales M.R.; Guschanski K.; Henry, A.G.; Hofman, C.A.; Humphrey, L.T.; Lewis, C.M.; Mann, A.E.; Nägele, K.; Parker, C.E.; Posth, C.; Rougier, H.; Sankaranarayan, K.; Semal, P., Stock, J.; Strauss, L.G.; Weedman Arthur, K.; Wrangham, R.W; Curtis, M.C; Diez, J.C.; Gibbon, V.E.; Menedez, M.; Peresani, M.; Roksandic, M.; Walker, M.J.; Power, R.C.; Salazar-Garcia, D.C.; Krause, J; Herbig, A.; Warinner. C.

    Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution (SMBE18), July 2018, Yokohama, Japan

    Workshop Presentation: Central European Late Pleistocene Woolly Mammoths: Insights from ZooMS, Stable Isotope and aDNA data

    2017
    Fellows Yates, J.A.; Drucker, D.G.; Reiter, E.; Heumos, S.; Welker, F.; Münzel, S.C;; Wojtal, P.; Lázničková-Galetová, M.; Conard, N.J.; Herbig, A.; Bocherens, H.,; Krause, J.

    Megafauna and Methods Workshop, February 2017, Jena, Germany

    Invited Talk: Palaeomicrobiology of Teeth

    2019
    Fellows Yates, J. A.

    Workshop ‘All About Teeth’, July 2019, EVEREST graduate school, University of Tübingen, Germany

    Invited Talk: Introduction to Dietary Metagenomes

    2017
    Fellows Yates, J. A.

    Archaeological Science workshop ‘Palaeodiet’, July 2018, Institute for Archaeological Sciences, University of Tübingen, Germany

    Conference Poster: Full Mitochondrial Genomes of Central European Upper Palaeolithic Woolly Mammoths (Mammuthus primigenius) (Conference Poster)

    2016
    Fellows Yates, J. A.; Drucker, D.G.; Herbig, A.; Münzel, S.C.; Bocherens, H.; Krause, J.

    International Symposium for Biomolecular Archaeology (ISBA7), September 2016, Oxford, United Kingdom

    "> Funding and Grants

    FlexFund Project EnterArchaeo

    2025 - 2024
    NFDI4Microbiota

    Funding for enhancing training, resource development, and analytical reproducibility in ancient microbiome research. €60,000

    Studienstipendien für Graduierte aller wissenschaftlichen Fächer

    2014 - 2015
    DAAD - Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst

    Graduate Scholarship for studying at a German institution. €7860

    Edward Hall Memorial Fund

    2013 - 2014
    Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art - University of Oxford

    Postgraduate scholarship for studying at the University of Oxford. £1000 [Declined]

    Skills & Proficiency

    Nextflow

    R

    Conda / Bioconda

    HPCs

    Bash

    Linux

    Git / GitHub

    Blog

    These are my personal blog posts (other posts maybe found in other venue)