Designed to be interactive and hands-on by C-DEBI’s Bioinformatic Specialist, Dr. Benjamin Tully, the C-DEBI ‘Introduction to Bioinformatics’ workshop provides a baseline for geoscientists interested in the basics of bioinformatic processing for microbial genomic data. The two-day workshop has hosted 34 researchers from C-DEBI member labs in three different instances of the workshop (Dec 2015, Dec 2016, and Feb 2017). The workshop consists of lectures introducing topics, such as, the Unix command line, sequence quality control, 16S rRNA gene surveys, metagenomic experimental design, and metagenomic analysis. Each topic has a hands-on element, which was provided to the workshop attendees via a compartmentalized virtual Linux environment, containing all tools and data necessary for demonstrations.
Documentation for each version of ‘Introduction to Bioinformatics’ workshop can be accessed by the public using the provided Google Drive links:
- Workshop I – December 12-13, 2015, Stanford University, 12 participants
- Workshop II – December 10-11, 2016, Stanford University, 13 participants
- Workshop III – February 10-11, 2017, University of Southern California, 9 participants
Working with Drs. Elisha Wood-Charlson and Edward Delong at the University of Hawaii, Monoa, the workshop was expanded and developed to accommodate additional attendees and lecturers for the ECOGEO Research Coordination Network meeting (July 25-26, 2016). Approximately 40 researchers of various academic levels, including graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and junior faculty, attended the workshop. Recorded lectures, documentation, and a full version of the virtual Linux environment is available via the EarthCube ECOGEO webpage (link) to allow researchers to participate remotely and at a self-determined pace.
Any and all questions can be sent via email to Dr. Benjamin Tully at: tully.bj@gmail.com