In our Teamsembl blog series, we sit down with a member of the Ensembl team to talk about their role within the project and get to know them. This month, we had a chat with Disha Lodha, a bioinformatician in the Ensembl Metazoa & Plants team.

What inspired you to pursue a career in bioinformatics?

My interest in bioinformatics comes from studying genetics and exploring how computational tools can be used to analyse complex biological data. I first encountered programming through Java, which sparked my interest in applying computation to detect patterns in biological datasets. To build on this, I taught myself Python and applied it in projects that combined data analysis. This experience motivated me to pursue a Master’s in Personalised Medicine at the University of Leeds, where I strengthened my expertise in genomics. Since then, I’ve focused on genomic integration and pipeline development.

What do you enjoy the most about your job?

I enjoy being part of a team that’s always evolving and constantly exploring new technologies, sharing ideas, and challenging ourselves to grow. I really value the collaborative diverse culture at EMBL-EBI and the opportunities it creates to connect with people across different disciplines. I especially enjoy hackathons and open discussions where we exchange perspectives. As an open source resource service provider, it’s rewarding to see how our data and tools support researchers around the world.

How has your role at Ensembl evolved since you first joined the team?

I joined the Ensembl Metazoa team as a bioinformatician, where I was involved in adding features for comparing sequence annotations between FASTA files and keeping our database in sync with the International Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration (INSDC). This role evolved to focus more on pipeline development, leading the migration of our pipelines to the Nextflow workflow system. We have since adopted unit testing and CI/CD (a principle used to continuously test code and deploy it for production use) for all our pipelines, emphasising modularity and thorough testing. I then joined the Ensembl Plants team to share my expertise, integrate genomes from different resources into Ensembl and tailor our pipelines to handle large genomes. 

What are you currently working on?

I’m currently exploring different orchestration frameworks to improve the automation, scalability, and reliability of our pipelines. This involves evaluating tools and workflow managers to identify solutions that best fit our evolving infrastructure needs, ensuring that our pipelines are both modular and maintainable.

In parallel, I’m working on processing genomes for integration into the new Ensembl website, collaborating with different teams to make the data accessible to users.

What advice would you give to those wanting to start a career in bioinformatics?

The best way to approach bioinformatics is to anchor your learning in a biological question that sparks your curiosity and explore how computational methods can help answer it. Understanding how existing tools work, even by looking into their source code is one of the best ways to build confidence and technical depth.

Bioinformatics is an incredibly diverse field, and no one is expected to know it all. Different backgrounds, such as software development, data analysis, or wet lab research, bring highly transferable and valuable skills.

How do you balance work and personal life while working at Ensembl?

Ensembl has a very collaborative and supportive culture which makes problem solving easier. Hybrid working helps to manage work and personal life easily. Ensembl has a well managed and flexible environment valuing the needs of people. This helps me pursue my interest in dance, entrepreneurial workshops and trying new activities.