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Introduction to R for Biologists (IN-PERSON) Mon 29 Apr 2024   09:30   [More dates...] [Places]

R is one of the leading programming languages in Data Science. It is widely used to perform statistics, machine learning, visualisations and data analyses. It is an open source programming language so all the software we will use in the course is free. This course is an introduction to R designed for participants with no programming experience. We will start from scratch by introducing how to start programming in R and progress our way and learn how to read and write to files, manipulate data and visualise it by creating different plots - all the fundamental tasks you need to get you started analysing your data. During the course we will be working with one of the most popular packages in R; tidyverse that will allow you to manipulate your data effectively and visualise it to a publication level standard.


If you do not have a University of Cambridge Raven account please book or register your interest here.

Additional information
  • ♿ The training room is located on the first floor and there is currently no wheelchair or level access.
  • Our courses are only free for registered University of Cambridge students. All other participants will be charged according to our charging policy.
  • Attendance will be taken on all courses and a charge is applied for non-attendance, including for University of Cambridge students. After you have booked a place, if you are unable to attend any of the live sessions, please email the Bioinfo Team.
  • Further details regarding eligibility criteria are available here.
  • Guidance on visiting Cambridge and finding accommodation is available here.

1 other event...

Date Availability
Tue 2 Jul 2024 09:30 Not bookable
Introduction to RNA-seq and ChIP-seq data analysis Wed 25 Oct 2017   09:30 Finished

The aim of this course is to familiarize the participants with the primary analysis of datasets generated through two popular high-throughput sequencing (HTS) assays: ChIP-seq and RNA-seq.

This course starts with a brief introduction to the transition from capillary to high-throughput sequencing (HTS) and discusses quality control issues, which are common among all HTS datasets. Next, we will present the alignment step and how it differs between the two analysis workflows. Finally, we focus on dataset specific downstream analysis, including peak calling and motif analysis for ChIP-seq and quantification of expression, transcriptome assembly and differential expression analysis for RNA-seq.

Please note that if you are not eligible for a University of Cambridge Raven account you will need to book or register your interest by linking here.

PLEASE NOTE that until further notice, due to the evolving situation with Coronavirus no courses will be offered as classroom based at the Training Facility. The Bioinformatics Team will be teaching the course live online in conjunction with the presenters.

This course provides a practical guide to producing figures for use in reports and publications.

It is a wide ranging course which looks at how to design figures to clearly and fairly represent your data, the practical aspects of graph creation, the allowable manipulation of bitmap images and compositing and editing of final figures.

The course will use a number of different open source software packages and is illustrated with a number of example figures adapted from common analysis tools.

Further information and access to the course materials is here.

Please note that if you are not eligible for a University of Cambridge Raven account you will need to book or register your interest by linking here.

This course provides a practical guide to producing figures for use in reports and publications.

It is a wide ranging course which looks at how to design figures to clearly and fairly represent your data, the practical aspects of graph creation, the allowable manipulation of bitmap images and compositing and editing of final figures.

The course will use a number of different open source software packages and is illustrated with a number of example figures adapted from common analysis tools.

Further information and access to the course materials is here.

Please note that if you are not eligible for a University of Cambridge Raven account you will need to Book or register Interest by linking here.

This course provides a refresher on the foundations of statistical analysis. The emphasis is on interpreting the results of a statistical test, and being able to determine the correct test to apply.

Practicals are conducted using a series of online apps, and we will not teach a particular statistical analysis package, such as R. For courses that teach R, please see the links under "Related courses" .

This event is part of a series of training courses organized in collaboration with the Bioinformatics Core Facility at CRUK Cambridge Institute.

Please note that if you are not eligible for a University of Cambridge Raven account you will need to Book or register Interest by linking here.

Introduction to Unix shell new Wed 17 Oct 2018   09:30 Finished

This course offers an introduction to working with Linux. We will describe the Linux environment so that participants can start to utilize command-line tools and feel comfortable using a text-based way of interacting with a computer. We will take a problem-solving approach, drawing on types of tasks commonly encountered by Linux users when processing text files.

The training room is located on the first floor and there is currently no wheelchair or level access available to this level.

Please note that if you are not eligible for a University of Cambridge Raven account you will need to book or register your interest by linking here.

Introduction to working with UNIX and bash (IN-PERSON) Mon 17 Jun 2024   09:30 [Places]

The Unix shell (command line) is a powerful and essential tool for modern researchers, in particular those working in computational disciplines such as bioinformatics and large-scale data analysis. In this course we will explore the basic structure of the Unix operating system and how we can interact with it using a basic set of commands. You will learn how to navigate the filesystem, manipulate text-based data and combine multiple commands to quickly extract information from large data files. You will also learn how to write scripts, use programmatic techniques to automate task repetition.


If you do not have a University of Cambridge Raven account please book or register your interest here.

Additional information
  • ♿ The training room is located on the first floor and there is currently no wheelchair or level access.
  • Our courses are only free for registered University of Cambridge students. All other participants will be charged according to our charging policy.
  • Attendance will be taken on all courses and a charge is applied for non-attendance, including for University of Cambridge students. After you have booked a place, if you are unable to attend any of the live sessions, please email the Bioinfo Team.
  • Further details regarding eligibility criteria are available here.
  • Guidance on visiting Cambridge and finding accommodation is available here.

This event introduces participants to the KNIME Analytics Platform, an open source data science platform with a visual workflow editor, that can be used by users without prior programming experience or integrated with existing scripts written in R or Python.

These sessions are aimed towards anyone who has an interest in building data science workflows with different kinds of life science data. The sessions will cover how to aggregate data from different sources (e.g., files, databases, web services), how to calculate simple statistics (e.g., for data exploration), network mining (e.g., protein-protein interactions) and big data analytics (e.g., next-generation sequencing data).

The webinar will combine practical and taught content to demonstrate how users can use KNIME to design and utilise reproducible data science workflows, such as analytics tasks, and better explore and understand their data.

Please note that if you are not eligible for a University of Cambridge Raven account you will need to book or register your interest by linking here.

Linear mixed effect models (IN-PERSON) new Wed 22 May 2024   09:30 [Full]

This course gives an introduction to linear mixed effects models, also called multi-level models or hierarchical models, for the purposes of using them in your own research or studies.

We emphasise the practical skills and key concepts needed to work with these models, using applied examples and real datasets.

After completing the course, you should have:

  • A conceptual understanding of what mixed effects models are, and when they should be used
  • Familiarity with fitting and interpreting mixed effects models using the lme4 package in R

Please note that this course builds on knowledge of linear modelling, therefore should not be considered a general introduction to statistical modelling.


If you do not have a University of Cambridge Raven account please book or register your interest here.

Additional information
  • Our courses are only free for registered University of Cambridge students. All other participants will be charged according to our charging policy.
  • Attendance will be taken on all courses and a charge is applied for non-attendance, including for University of Cambridge students. After you have booked a place, if you are unable to attend any of the live sessions, please email the Bioinfo Team.
  • Further details regarding eligibility criteria are available here.
  • Guidance on visiting Cambridge and finding accommodation is available here.
Managing your Research Data (ONLINE LIVE TRAINING) Tue 2 May 2023   10:00 Finished

How much data would you lose if your laptop was stolen? Have you ever emailed your colleague a file named 'final_final_versionEDITED'? Have you ever struggled to import your spreadsheets into R? Would you be able to write a Data Management Plan as part of a grant proposal?

As a researcher, you will encounter research data in many forms, ranging from measurements, numbers and images to documents and publications. Whether you create, receive or collect data, you will certainly need to organise it at some stage of your project. This workshop will provide an overview of some basic principles on how we can work with data more effectively. We will discuss the best practices for research data management and organisation so that our research is auditable and reproducible by ourselves, and others, in the future.

Course materials are available here

This event is part of a series of training courses organized in collaboration with the Bioinformatics Core Facility at CRUK Cambridge Institute.

Please note that if you are not eligible for a University of Cambridge Raven account you will need to book or register your interest by linking here.

MATLAB: Image Processing Workshop (Online) new Mon 4 May 2020   15:00 Finished

Join us for a two-hour workshop on image processing and analysis in MATLAB. This practical session provides a series of example workflows to extract quantitative data from image files.

This workshop is the first event in Imaging ONE WORLD, a series of events bringing together scientists working from home to deliver workshops and talks on imaging theory and analysis. An initiative made up of scientists, imaging systems and software providers in collaboration to deliver high quality training to the image analysis community.

Although not a necessity, we recommend attending the Introduction to MATLAB course run at the Training Facility and / or the Intro to MATLAB using MathWorks prior to the workshop. For the MathsWorks course you will need to sign up for a MathWorks Account. All University of Cambridge members should be eligible to obtain a MathWorks Account. Create an account using your institution email address.

Please note that if you are not eligible for a University of Cambridge Raven account you will need to Book or register Interest by linking here.

Mouse Genome Informatics workshop new Tue 27 Oct 2015   10:00 Finished

Mouse Genome Informatics (MGI) is the international database resource for the laboratory mouse and provides integrated genetic, genomic, and biological data to facilitate the study of human health and disease.

MGI is a free, highly curated resource and offers web and programmatic access to a complete catalogue of mouse genes and genome features, functional annotations, a comprehensive catalogue of mutant and knockout alleles, phenotype and human disease model annotations, gene expression, variation and sequence data.

This workshop will be composed of ~20min overview and ~1 hour hands-on, interactive tutorial.

Please note that if you are not eligible for a University of Cambridge Raven account you will need to book by linking here.

MSt in Genomic Medicine - Advanced bioinformatics Mon 20 Mar 2017   09:30 Finished

This module introduces a deeper exploration of bioinformatics analysis of genomic data, providing a greater understanding of the different approaches to mapping and alignment of genome sequence data, programming and scripting, along with approaches for the detection and analysis of genomic changes, gene expression and network analysis.

Network Visualisation and Analysis of Biological Data new Thu 14 Apr 2016   09:30 Finished

This two day course will cover network-based approaches to visualise and analyse complex biological ‘big’ data and model pathway systems. The course will be centred on the use of BioLayout Express3D, a tool developed between scientists at the University of Edinburgh and EBI over the last 10 years.

BioLayout provides rapid and versatile means to explore and integrate very large datasets, providing a stunning interface to visualise the relationships between 10’s of thousands of data points. Originally designed for the analysis of microarray data, it is equally effective in analysing data matrices from other analysis platforms.

Day one of the course will introduce principles of network analysis and their use as a generic medium to understand relationships between entities. We will introduce the basics of network visualisation and navigation within BioLayout and principles of correlation analysis of data matrices. We will then explore how data can be explored and clustered within the tool and how you can use the software to rapidly extract meaning from large and complex datasets.

Day two will focus on pathway modelling. We will explain how to collate information about a given system of interest from the literature, and to turn this information into a logic-based pathway model. We will then explore how these models can be parametrised and imported into BioLayout where simulations can be run that model the dynamics of these systems under different conditions. For more information see: http://www.virtuallyimmune.org/

A draft agenda can be found here.

Please note that if you are not eligible for a University of Cambridge Raven account you will need to Book or register Interest by linking here.

Next Generation Sequencing data analysis Tue 17 Mar 2015   09:00 Finished

This course provides an introduction to next generation sequencing (NGS) data analysis methodologies. Lectures will give insight into how biological knowledge can be generated from RNA-seq, ChIP-seq and DNA-seq experiments and illustrate different ways of analyzing such data. Practicals will consist of computer exercises that will enable the participants to apply statistical methods to the analysis of RNA-seq, ChIP-seq and DNA-seq data under the guidance of the lecturers and teaching assistants. It is aimed at researchers who are applying or planning to apply NGS technologies and bioinformatics methods in their research.

The timetable for this event can be found here.

Please note that if you are not eligible for a University of Cambridge Raven account you will need to Book or register Interest by linking here.

  • Nowomics - Access to the latest data and papers relevant to your research
  • Nowomics is a new website to help biologists stay up to date with the latest data and papers relevant to their research. Try it here.
  • Nowomics tracks new papers and many types of data in online repositories. You ‘follow’ the genes and processes you work on to see a Twitter-like news feed of new papers, annotation, interactions, curated comments and more.
  • For each gene you can also include information from orthologues and related genes directly in your news feed.
  • Data are currently included for human, mouse, rat, fly and plant.
  • This short workshop will show you how to use the Beta version of Nowomics to find the latest information for genes & keywords, how to set up your personalised news feed and configure email alerts. We’ll also demonstrate new portals to help researchers working on Drosophila or Arabidopsis find the latest and most popular papers.

Please note that if you are not eligible for a University of Cambridge Raven account you will need to book by linking here.

Ontologies and ontology-based data analysis Wed 21 Nov 2018   10:00 Finished

Ontologies have long provided a core foundation in the organization of biomedical entities, their attributes, and their relationships. With over 500 biomedical ontologies currently available there are a number of new and exciting opportunities emerging in using ontologies for large scale data sharing and data analysis.

This tutorial will help you understand what ontologies are and how they are being used in computational biology and bioinformatics. It will include hands-on examples and exercises and an introduction to Onto2Vec and OPA2Vec, two methods that can be used to learn semantic similarity measures in a data- and application-driven way.

The training room is located on the first floor and there is currently no wheelchair or level access available to this level.

Please note that if you are not eligible for a University of Cambridge Raven account you will need to book or register your interest by linking here.

Open Targets is a public-private partnership to use human genetics, genomic data and drug information for systematic identification and prioritisation of therapeutic targets. This module introduces the Open Targets partnership, its underlying projects and the bioinformatics resources for researchers studying associations of human genes with diseases.

In this 90 minute long webinar, Denise Carvalho-Silva, will focus on Open Targets Platform and Open Targets Genetics, open source tools of integrated genetic, genomic and chemical data for target-disease associations.

Please note that if you are not eligible for a University of Cambridge Raven account you will need to book or register your interest by linking here.

Principles of Machine Learning (IN-PERSON) new Fri 19 Jan 2024   09:30 Finished

This is a first course on machine learning. It aims to provide a foundation for future work with machine learning. This course will get you to the point where you can confidently engage with literature referencing machine learning, but it is not designed to get you to the point where you can actively use modern machine learning methods in your own research. It will however signpost for you which of our other courses will be relevant if you want to get to that stage.


If you do not have a University of Cambridge Raven account please book or register your interest here.

Additional information
  • Our courses are only free for registered University of Cambridge students. All other participants will be charged according to our charging policy.
  • Attendance will be taken on all courses and a charge is applied for non-attendance, including for University of Cambridge students. After you have booked a place, if you are unable to attend any of the live sessions, please email the Bioinfo Team.
  • Further details regarding eligibility criteria are available here.
Programming for Machine Learning (IN-PERSON) new Fri 1 Mar 2024   09:30 Finished

This course is aimed to provide the tools to create machine learning models in R using the CARET Library. This is a pre-requisite for the intermediate and advanced courses on supervised and unsupervised learning courses.


If you do not have a University of Cambridge Raven account please book or register your interest here.

Additional information
  • ♿ The training room is located on the first floor and there is currently no wheelchair or level access.
  • Our courses are only free for registered University of Cambridge students. All other participants will be charged according to our charging policy.
  • Attendance will be taken on all courses and a charge is applied for non-attendance, including for University of Cambridge students. After you have booked a place, if you are unable to attend any of the live sessions, please email the Bioinfo Team.
  • Further details regarding eligibility criteria are available here.
  • Guidance on visiting Cambridge and finding accommodation is available here.

Jalview hands-on training course is for anyone who works with sequence data and multiple sequence alignments from proteins, RNA and DNA.

Jalview is free software for protein and nucleic acid sequence alignment generation, visualisation and analysis. It includes sophisticated editing options and provides a range of analysis tools to investigate the structure and function of macromolecules through a multiple window interface. For example, Jalview supports 8 popular methods for multiple sequence alignment, prediction of protein secondary structure by JPred and disorder prediction by four methods. Jalview also has options to generate phylogenetic trees, and assess consensus and conservation across sequence families. Sequences, alignments and additional annotation can be accessed directly from public databases and journal-quality figures generated for publication.

The course involves of a mixture of talks and hands-on exercises.

Day 1 is an introduction to protein multiple sequence alignment editing and analysis with Jalview.

Day 2 focuses on using Jalview for RNA sequence analysis, and also integrating cDNA and protein analysis and covers more advanced applications after lunch.

Day 3 concentrates on protein secondary structure prediction with JPred version 4 as well as protein sub-family analysis to identify functionally important residues.

There will be opportunities for attendees to get advice on analysis of their own sequence families.

Further information, including some training videos, is also available.

Please note that if you are not eligible for a University of Cambridge Raven account you will need to book by linking here.

Protein Structure Analysis new Thu 24 May 2018   09:30 Finished

This course covers data resources and analytical approaches for the discovery and interpretation of biomacromolecular structures.

Day 1 focuses on public repositories of structural data (Protein Data Bank and Electron Microscopy Data Bank) and resources for protein analysis and classification (Pfam, InterPro and HMMER).

Day 2 covers how to find information about the structure and function of your protein sequence using CATH, principles of modern state-of-the-art protein modelling with Phyre2 and methods for predicting the effects of mutations on protein structure and function using the SAAP family of tools.

Please note that if you are not eligible for a University of Cambridge Raven account you will need to book by linking here.

Protein Structure Analysis new Thu 20 Jun 2019   10:00 Finished

This course covers analytical approaches for the interpretation of biomacromolecular structures including how to find information about the structure and function of your protein sequence using CATH, principles of modern state-of-the-art protein modelling with Phyre2 and methods for predicting the effects of mutations on protein structure and function using the SAAP family of tools. In addition, we will look at mapping genetic variants onto structures as well as visualisation and basic analysis of protein structures.

The training room is located on the first floor and there is currently no wheelchair or level access available to this level.

Please note that if you are not eligible for a University of Cambridge Raven account you will need to book or register your interest by linking here.

This course covers the potential pitfalls of short-read sequencing studies and provides options for visualisation and quality control (QC) for early detection and diagnosis of issues. You will gain an understanding of Illumina sequencing and different QC metrics that can be extracted from sequencing reads, such as base quality scores. The course also covers how QC metrics vary across different library types and thus distinguish between expected and unexpected QC results. You will be introduced to key software tools including FastQC, FastQ Screen, and MultiQC to carry out quality assessment of your sequencing data.


If you do not have a University of Cambridge Raven account please book or register your interest here.

Additional information
  • Our courses are only free for registered University of Cambridge students. All other participants will be charged according to our charging policy.
  • Attendance will be taken on all courses and a charge is applied for non-attendance, including for University of Cambridge students. After you have booked a place, if you are unable to attend any of the live sessions, please email the Bioinfo Team.
  • Further details regarding eligibility criteria are available here.
Reproducible Research with R (IN-PERSON) Wed 1 May 2024   09:30 [Places]

This course introduces concepts about reproducibility that can be used when you are programming in R. We will explore how to create notebooks - a way to integrate your R analyses into reports using Rmarkdown. The course also introduces the concept of version control. We will learn how to create a repository on GitHub and how to work together on the same project collaboratively without creating conflicting versions of files.


If you do not have a University of Cambridge Raven account please book or register your interest here.

Additional information
  • ♿ The training room is located on the first floor and there is currently no wheelchair or level access.
  • Our courses are only free for registered University of Cambridge students. All other participants will be charged according to our charging policy.
  • Attendance will be taken on all courses and a charge is applied for non-attendance, including for University of Cambridge students. After you have booked a place, if you are unable to attend any of the live sessions, please email the Bioinfo Team.
  • Further details regarding eligibility criteria are available here.
  • Guidance on visiting Cambridge and finding accommodation is available here.

The course will teach intermediate R object-oriented programming and how to build a fully functional R package.

Relevant teaching materials are available here and the sequences example package used as template in the course can be found here.

The training room is located on the first floor and there is currently no wheelchair or level access available to this level.

Please note that if you are not eligible for a University of Cambridge Raven account you will need to book or register your interest by linking here.

Software Carpentry: Instructor training Mon 19 Sep 2016   09:30 Finished

This course is aimed at researchers who want to learn core skills and best practices for scientific computing. It will cover basic concepts and tools, including program design, version control, data management, and task automation. Participants will be encouraged to help one another and to apply what they have learned to their own research problems.

The course covers the core skills needed to be productive in a small research team:

  • Unix command line (and how to automate repetitive tasks);
  • Python or R (and how to grow a program in a modular, testable way); and
  • version control with Git (and how to track and share work efficiently).

Further information is available here.

Applicants for this course are requested to complete a pre-course survey. This will be used to tailor the course content to the audience research interests and background.

This event is organized in collaboration with Software Carpentry.

Statistical Analysis using R Fri 12 Jul 2019   09:30 Finished

Statistics are an important part of most modern studies and being able to effectively use a statistical package will help you to understand your results.

This course provides an introduction to some statistical techniques through the use of the R language. Topics covered include: Chi2 and Fisher tests, descriptive statistics, t-test, analysis of variance and regression.

Students will run analyses using statistical and graphical skills taught during the session.

The course manual can be found here.

This event is supported by the BBSRC Strategic Training Awards for Research Skills (STARS) grant (BB/P022766/1).

The training room is located on the first floor and there is currently no wheelchair or level access available to this level.

Please note that if you are not eligible for a University of Cambridge Raven account you will need to book or register your interest by linking here.

Statistics bootcamp using R (Online) Fri 4 Sep 2020   09:30 Finished

PLEASE NOTE The Bioinformatics Team are presently teaching as many courses live online, with tutors available to help you work through the course material on a personal copy of the course environment. We aim to simulate the classroom experience as closely as possible, with opportunities for one-to-one discussion with tutors and a focus on interactivity throughout.

This bootcamp provides an in depth look at statistical analyses using R.

Day 1 aims to introduce R as a tool for statistics and graphics, with the main aim being to become comfortable with the R environment. As well as introducing core R language concepts, this course also provides the basics of using the Tidyverse for data manipulation, and ggplot for plotting. It will focus on entering and manipulating data in R and producing simple graphs.

PLEASE NOTE: If you are already comfortable working in R and using the tidyverse package, you might find that you can skip Friday’s training session. Please review the pre-requisites section below for further information.

Day 2-6 (half days) will focus on the statistical possibilities of R, covering from experimental design to analysis of quantitative and qualitative data. Ample time will be given to participants to practise different type of analysis and interact with the trainers to discuss their statistical problems.

This event is organized in collaboration with the Babraham Institutes's Bioinformatics Group and it is supported by the BBSRC Strategic Training Awards for Research Skills (STARS) grant (BB/P022766/1).

Please note that if you are not eligible for a University of Cambridge Raven account you will need to book or register your interest by linking here.

Statistics for Biologists in R Thu 19 Sep 2019   09:30 Finished

This course is intended to provide a strong foundation in practical statistics and data analysis using the R software environment. The underlying philosophy of the course is to treat statistics as a practical skill rather than as a theoretical subject and as such the course focuses on methods for addressing real-life issues in the biological sciences using the R software package.

In this course we explore classical statistical analysis techniques starting with simple hypothesis testing and building up to multiple linear regression. The focus of the course is on practical implementation of these techniques and developing robust statistical analysis skills rather than on the underlying statistical theory.

After the course you should feel confident to be able to select and implement common statistical techniques using R and moreover know when, and when not, to apply these techniques.

This event is supported by the BBSRC Strategic Training Awards for Research Skills (STARS) grant (BB/P022766/1).

The training room is located on the first floor and there is currently no wheelchair or level access available to this level.

Please note that if you are not eligible for a University of Cambridge Raven account you will need to book or register your interest by linking here.

Train the Trainer for Image Analysts Thu 30 May 2019   09:30 Finished

This course aims to provide trainers with guidance and tips for developing and delivering training in image analysis, exploring a range of methods appropriate to different learning styles and examining the requirements for a successful course (both scientific and logistic).

The first part of the course will give participants principles of training theory and best practises for developing and delivering their future training content; the second part will be a hackathon to kick start the development of a common set of training materials in image analysis.

This event is organized in collaboration with the Image Analysis Focused Interest Group and is supported by the Royal Microscopical Society.

The training room is located on the first floor and there is currently no wheelchair or level access available to this level.

Please note that if you are not eligible for a University of Cambridge Raven account you will need to Book or register Interest by linking here.

PLEASE NOTE The Bioinformatics Team are presently teaching as many courses live online, with tutors available to help you work through the course material on a personal copy of the course environment. We aim to simulate the classroom experience as closely as possible, with opportunities for one-to-one discussion with tutors and a focus on interactivity throughout.

RNA-Seq technology has been transformative in our ability to explore gene content and gene expression in all realms of biology, and de novo transcriptome assembly has enabled opportunities to expand transcriptome analysis to non-model organisms.

This course provides an overview of modern applications of transcriptome sequencing and popular tools, and algorithms, for exploring transcript reconstruction and expression analysis in a genome-free manner.

Attendees will perform quality assessment and upstream analysis of both Illumina and long reads single molecule sequencing data; the derived transcriptomes will be compared, annotated and used as reference for quantifying transcript expression, leveraging on Bioconductor tools for differential expression analysis. Additional methods will be explored for characterising the assembled transcriptome and revealing biological findings.

Please note that if you are not eligible for a University of Cambridge Raven account you will need to book or register your interest by linking here.

Microscopy experiments have proven to be a powerful means of generating information-rich data for biological applications. From small-scale microscopy experiments to time-lapse movies and high-throughput screens, automatic image analysis is more objective and quantitative and less tedious than visual inspection.

This course will introduce users to the free open-source image analysis program CellProfiler and its companion data exploration program CellProfiler Analyst. We will show how CellProfiler can be used to analyse a variety of types of imaging experiments. We will also briefly discuss the basic principles of supervised machine learning with CellProfiler Analyst in order to score complex and subtle phenotypes.

The training room is located on the first floor and there is currently no wheelchair or level access available to this level.

Please note that if you are not eligible for a University of Cambridge Raven account you will need to book or register your interest by linking here.

The Ensembl Project provides an interface and an infrastructure for accessing genomic information, including genes, variants, comparative genomics and gene regulation data, covering over 300 vertebrate species. This workshop offers a comprehensive practical introduction to the use of the Ensembl genome browser as well as essential background information.

This course will focus on the vertebrate genomes in Ensembl, however much of what will be covered is also applicable to the non-vertebrates (plants, bacteria, fungi, metazoa and protists) in Ensembl Genomes.


If you do not have a University of Cambridge Raven account please book or register your interest here.

Additional information
  • Our courses are only free for registered University of Cambridge students. All other participants will be charged according to our charging policy.
  • Attendance will be taken on all courses and a charge is applied for non-attendance, including for University of Cambridge students. After you have booked a place, if you are unable to attend any of the live sessions, please email the Bioinfo Team.
  • Further details regarding eligibility criteria are available here.
Variant Analysis with GATK Wed 12 Jul 2017   09:30 Finished

This workshop will focus on the core steps involved in calling variants with the Broad’s Genome Analysis Toolkit, using the “Best Practices” developed by the GATK team. You will learn why each step is essential to the variant discovery process, what are the operations performed on the data at each step, and how to use the GATK tools to get the most accurate and reliable results out of your dataset.

In the course of this workshop, we highlight key functionalities such as the germline GVCF workflow for joint variant discovery in cohorts, RNAseq­ specific processing, and somatic variant discovery using MuTect2. We also preview capabilities of the upcoming GATK version 4, including a new workflow for CNV discovery, and we demonstrate the use of pipelining tools to assemble and execute GATK workflows.

The workshop is composed of one day of lectures and two days of hands­on training, structured as follows. Day 1: theory and application of the Best Practices for Variant Discovery in high­throughput sequencing data. Day 2 and the morning of Day 3: hands­on exercises on how to manipulate the standard data formats involved in variant discovery and how to apply GATK tools appropriately to various use cases and data types. Day 3 afternoon: hands-on exercises on how to write workflow scripts using WDL, the Broad's new Workflow Description Language, and to execute these workflows locally as well as through a publicly accessible cloud-based service.

Please note that this workshop is focused on human data analysis. The majority of the materials presented does apply equally to non­human data, and we will address some questions regarding adaptations that are needed for analysis of non­-human data, but we will not go into much detail on those points.

Please note that if you are not eligible for a University of Cambridge Raven account you will need to Book or register Interest by linking here.

Variant Discovery with GATK4 (IN PERSON) Tue 18 Apr 2023   09:30 Finished

This workshop will focus on the core steps involved in calling variants from Illumina next generation sequencing data using the Genome Analysis Toolkit (GATK). You will learn about best practices in calling somatic variants: single nucleotide variants (SNVs), short insertion/deletions (indels) and copy number variants (CNVs). We will also cover considerations to take when calling variants on the mitochondrial genome, as well as variant calling from bulk and single-cell RNA-seq data. We will also cover how the data structures provided by GATK can help you process large datasets in parallel and at scale. Although this workshop focuses on human data, the majority of the concepts and approaches apply to non-human data, and we will cover some adaptations needed in those situations.

The training room is located on the first floor and there is currently no wheelchair or level access available to this level.

Please note that if you are not eligible for a University of Cambridge Raven account you will need to Book or register Interest by linking here.

This course covers state-of-the-art tools and methods for NGS RNA-seq and exome variant data analysis, which are of major relevance in today's genomic and gene expression studies.

It is oriented to experimental researchers, post-doctoral and PhD students who want to learn about the state-of-the-art of genomic variant and transcriptomics data analysis methodologies and carry out their own analysis.

Further information is available here.

Please note that if you are not eligible for a University of Cambridge Raven account you will need to book by linking here.

This 1-week course provides an introduction to data exploration of biological data. It provides a learning journey starting with learning about how we can automate processes that can be reproduced to analyse our biological data.

The course will begin with discussing what opportunities and challenges are associated with aspects of bioinformatics analyses. We will address a subset of them in greater detail in the central part of the course and provide time for participants to practise using some of the associated bioinformatics tools.

Focusing on solutions around handling biological data, we will cover programming in R, version control, statistical analyses, and data exploration. The R component of the course will cover from the foundations of programming in R to how to use some of the most popular R packages (dplyr and ggplot2) for data manipulation and visualisation. No prior R experience or previous knowledge of programming is required. At the end of the course we will address issues relating to reusability and reproducibility.

More information about the course can be found here.

Please note that if you are not eligible for a University of Cambridge Raven account you will need to book or register your interest by linking here.

Working with Bacterial Genomes (IN-PERSON) new Mon 22 Jul 2024   09:30 Not bookable

This comprehensive course equips you with essential skills and knowledge in bacterial genomics analysis, primarily using Illumina-sequenced samples. You'll gain an understanding of how to select the most appropriate analysis workflow, tailored to the genome diversity of a given bacterial species. Through hands-on training, you'll apply both de novo assembly and reference-based mapping approaches to obtain bacterial genomes for your isolates. You will apply standardised workflows for genome assembly and annotation, including quality assessment criteria to ensure the reliability of your results. Along with typing bacteria using methods such as MLST, you'll learn how to construct phylogenetic trees using whole genome and core genome alignments, enabling you to explore the evolutionary relationships among bacterial isolates. You’ll extend this to estimate a time-scaled phylogeny using a starting phylogenetic tree. Lastly, you'll apply methods to detect antimicrobial resistance genes. As examples we will use Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Staphylococcus aureus and Streptococcus pneumoniae, allowing you to become well-equipped to conduct bacterial genomics analyses on a range of species.


If you do not have a University of Cambridge Raven account please book or register your interest here.

Additional information
  • ♿ The training room is located on the first floor and there is currently no wheelchair or level access.
  • Our courses are only free for registered University of Cambridge students. All other participants will be charged according to our charging policy.
  • Attendance will be taken on all courses and a charge is applied for non-attendance, including for University of Cambridge students. After you have booked a place, if you are unable to attend any of the live sessions, please email the Bioinfo Team.
  • Further details regarding eligibility criteria are available here.
Working with Python: functions and modules Wed 4 Jul 2018   09:30 Finished

This course will cover concepts and strategies for working more effectively with Python with the aim of writing reusable code. In the morning session, we will briefly go over the basic syntax, data structures and control statements. This will be followed by an introduction to writing user-defined functions. We will finish the course by looking into how to incorporate existing python modules and packages into your programs as well as writing you own modules.

Course materials can be found here.

Note: this one-day course is the continuation of the Introduction to Solving Biological Problems with Python; participants are expected to have attended the introductory Python course and/or have acquired some working knowledge of Python. This course is also open to Python beginners who are already fluent in other programming languages as this will help them to quickly get started in Python.

Please note that if you are not eligible for a University of Cambridge Raven account you will need to book by linking here.

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