ClawBio Hackathon #2 · April 2026

Agentic
Genomics

Lessons learned building AI agents for bioinformatics

Cameron Lloyd  ·  ClawBio

Does this feel familiar?

"Every time I open social media, someone's posted about AI agents. I don't know where to start."

Social media → YouTube → documentation → repeat

Always reading. Always about to start.

Stop scrolling and start building.

How did I get here?

Scientist by training → bioinformatician & data engineer

Advocate for automation, reproducibility, FAIR data

Saw an advert for the first ClawBio hackathon. Skeptical, naturally.

In an hour, I was able to take an idea to an MVP. Something clicked.

So I submitted a PR. Then another. And I haven't stopped slept since.

One month of contributions

Skills

fine-mapping cell-detection multiqc-reporter labstep struct-predictor protocols-io

Infrastructure

reproducibility module conda-lock SKILL.md template PR audit bot security CI workflows

  • 27 merged PRs in one month — nearly one a day
  • So what?

So what?

Most biologists don't know ClawBio exists yet.

🔓 Open source

In a space full of proprietary black boxes, ClawBio is built in the open — every skill, every decision, reviewable by anyone.

💬 Challenge culture

Lowering the barrier so anyone can question an approach, flag a result, or say "this doesn't look right." Domain expertise is a contribution.

🌀 Flywheel effect

Users become contributors. Contributors build better tools. Better tools attract more users. That's how communities grow.

ClawBio is the start of a community.

Others are still trying to do this in isolation.

Together, we can move 10× faster — and in the right direction.

A few things to keep in mind

  • Respect original works. Preserve defaults, CLI flags, output structure, and behaviour.
  • Cite research properly. Make sure citations actually exist — LLMs hallucinate references.
  • Do not assume scientific correctness. Validate reimplementations against original works.
  • Don't reinvent the wheel. Use /commons/ for helper functions and test fixtures.
  • Be aware of prompt injection. Note this is dependent on the underlying model you use.
Prompt injection via Telegram bot

Real prompt injection attempt via the ClawBio Telegram bot

Further reading: rewrites.bio — by Seqera

ClawBio Hackathon #2

Let's build
agentic genomics
together.

First-time contributor? Check the GitHub issues.

  • Open an issue to claim what you're working on
  • Comment on an open issue
  • Audit an existing skill
  • Test a skill with real, publicly-available data
  • Create publication-ready figures
  • Translate a skill to another language

Contributions aren't always code. Your domain expertise matters too.

Unsure where to start? Just ask.

github.com/ClawBio/ClawBio skills.sh #clawbio
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