EMBO 2003

16-22, March 2003
Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge, UK

"There were roughly four applicants per available position for this year's EMBO course in micorarray analysis. We have made the selection of the 30 successful applicants and sent out confirmation emails. If you have applied, but not received any email from us, this means that you are placed on the waiting list. If we have cancellations, you have a possibility of being accepted but maybe at a short notice. "

Organisers

• Alvis Brazma
  EMBL Outstation – Hinxton, the European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, Hinxton, CB10 1SD, UK
• Wilhelm Ansorge
  EMBL Heidelberg, Meyerhofstr. 1, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany
• John Quackenbush
  The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR), 9712 Medical Center Drive Rockville, MD 20850, USA
• Johan Rung
  EMBL Outstation – Hinxton, the European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, Hinxton, CB10 1SD, UK
• Jaak Vilo
  EMBL Outstation – Hinxton, the European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, Hinxton, CB10 1SD, 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.

List of speakers

• Alvis Brazma, EBI
• John Quackenbush, TIGR
• Wilhelm Ansorge, EMBL
• Alexandra Ansorge, EMBL
• Ugis Sarkans, EBI
• Misha Kapushesky, EBI
• Christian Schwager, EMBL
• Sandrine Dudoit, UC Berkeley
• Jurg Bahler, Sanger Institute
• Rolf Apweiler, EBI
• Jaak Vilo,EBI
• Tom Freeman, HGMP-RC
• Janet Thornton, EBI
• Frank Holstege, UMC Utrecht
• Eileen Furlong, EMBL
• Helen Parkinson, EBI
• Mohammad Shojatalab, EBI
• Mahesan Niranjan, University of Sheffield
• Martina Muckenthaler, EMBL
• Helen Causton, Imperial College
• Patrick Kemmeren, UMC Utrecht
• Rob Andrews, Sanger Institute
• Inge Jonassen, University of Bergen
• Johan Rung, EBI

Target Audience

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.

The application process has not yet started - please come back later. We expect to start accepting applications in mid November.

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).