EMBO

29 October to 3 November 2001
Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge, UK

Venue
Agenda
Application

Organisers

Principal Organiser:

• Alvis Brazma
  EMBL Outstation – Hinxton, the European Bioinformatics Instute, Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, Hinxton, CB10 1SD, UK
  

Co-organisers:

• Wilhelm Ansorge
  EMBL Heidelberg, Meyerhofstr. 1, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany
• Alan Robinson
  EMBL-EBI, Hinxton, CB10 ISD, UK
• Jaak Vilo
  EMBL-EBI, Hinxton, CB10 ISD, UK
• Martin Vingron
  Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics, Ihnestr 1, 14195 Berlin, Germany
• Jean-Jack Riethoven
  EMBL-EBI, Hinxton, CB10 ISD, UK
  

Description

The main objective of the course is to introduce the participants to bioinformatics methodologies and software tools for coping with data floods generated by DNA-array technology. More general objective will be to discuss various ways of making biological sense out of DNA-array data, and give the participants experience in using relevant software tools in conjunctions with other available bioinformatics resources (databases and data analysis tools).
The course is aimed at advanced PhD students and postdoctoral researchers who are applying DNA-array technologies and bioinformatics methods in their research. Familiarity with DNA-arrays and basic knowledge in bioinformatics (such as use of bioinformatics databases) will be required. Ideally the participants should have performed some microarray based experiments and should bring their own data for analysis during the practical sessions of the course.

Content

The proposed course will consist of:

1. Lectures from distinguished speakers;
2. Presentations from the participants describing their research (in particular microarray based experiments that they have performed or are planning to perform);
3. Demonstration of DNA-array data analysis software and other relevant bioinformatics resources;
4. Practical work in using the demonstrated software and resources to analyse either the participants own DNA-array data (preferably) or DNA-array data provided by the organisers;
5. Final presentations from the participants discussing the data analysis results obtained during the practical session.

It is expected that there will be 7-8 lectures, each around 1 hour long (~15% of the total time of the course). The lectures will give insight into how biological knowledge can be generated from DNA-array experiments and ways of analysing such data. Each participant will be given 15 min for presenting their research (for 24 participants). The software demonstrations will be given at the beginning of practical sessions and may continue during the practical sessions. The practical work will start in the afternoon of the first day and will finish a day before the end of the course, together with demonstrations taking around 50% of the time of the course. The last day will be devoted to the final presentations.

Preliminary list of speakers

From the staff members in the host institution (will be available for most of the duration of the course):

A. Brazma
J. Vilo
R. Apweiler
G. Barton
E. Birney
R. Lopez
A. Robinson
T. Schlitt
G. Stoesser

From the Wellcome Trust Genome Campus (available for most of the duration)

R. Durbin (Sanger Institute)
T. Freeman (MRC HGMP-RC)
K. Rice (Sanger Institute)

From European countries (including UK) – available for duration of two days

W. Ansorge (EMBL – Heidelberg)
H. Eickhof (Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics, Berlin)
P. Hingamp (Centre d'Immunology de Marseille Luminy)
M. Niranjan (The University of Sheffield)
M. Vingron (German Cancer Research Centre)

From the US – available for 1-2 days

Mike Bittner (NHGRI, NIH)
T. Gaasterland (Rockefeller University)

Target audience

A maximum of 24 students will be accepted. Applicants will be notified mid September 2001 if they have been accepted.

EMBO Courses are primarily open to applicants from member states of the EMBC. Applicants from outside the EMBC countries will only be given low priority. The student selection will be done by the co-organisers of the course in consultation with the EMBO. The student selection criteria will be

• relevance of their current work to the objectives of the course
• scientific excellence of the previous research
• quality of the applications
• geographical distribution
• recommendations from EMBO

Students at early stages of their career will be accepted if they can demonstrate the relevance of their work to the objectives of the course. Students who will have performed DNA-array experiments will be preferred. Ideally the students should have data from their own DNA-array experiments to analyse during the course. Applicants from industry will not be considered for funding from EMBO. Staff from the host institutions will not be taken as students, but will be allowed to participate in the lectures. The students from the UK will not be given any preference.

Persons interested in participation in the course must fill in the application form by September 1, 2001.

Financial Support

The costs of participant accommodation and catering is paid by EMBO on room sharing basis (two persons per room). The travel costs have to be covered by the participants (financial support may be possible for participants from the Eastern European countries).

The criteria for accepting applicants from the private industry are the same as listed under "Target audience", however if such an applicant is accepted his or her company is expected to pay a fee of EURO 1500 directly to the EMBO in Heidelberg, Germany.