About the course
This introductory course is addressed to unexperienced students, scientists and stakeholders interested in acquiring practical bioinformatics skills on metabarcoding and metagenomic data analyses.
Course Description
DNA metabarcoding and metagenomics are powerful methods for assessing biodiversity, either from environment or from bulk samples, for a wide range of applications (e.g. biodiversity monitoring, medical and food sciences, reconstruction of paleo communities, etc.). They require skills from molecular biology, bioinformatics, biostatistics, microbiology.
This course consists of lectures and practical sessions introducing main aspects of metabarcoding and metagenomic bioinformatics data analyses (from data pre-processing to data analysis), providing the students with the necessary knowledge and skill to select and apply the main approaches. Results presentation and delivery will be also discussed.
Course Topics
Metabarcoding (16S, 18S, and other)
Metagenomic data processing (reference based and de novo approaches)
Data analyses and visualization
Course Learning Outcomes
The student will be able to:
• understand the potential of metabarcoding and metagenomic approaches for their research;
• run complete bioinformatic analyses for metabarcoding and metagenomic data processing;
• summarize main outcomes from the results;
• design their own metabarcoding/metagenomic projects.
Course Prerequisite
The course is for beginners. Prior experience with metagenomics and metabarcoding is not required.
Bioinformatics basic knowledge is expected (sequence comparison: BLAST vs databases, multiple alignment).
All participants must bring their own personal laptop (Windows, Macintosh, Linux).
Participants will be selected based on their CV and motivation letter.
Registration fee is 250 euros/person and includes coffee breaks, lunches and social events.
Application deadline: 16 December 2019
Extended deadline: 5 January 2020
