Bioinformatics: A Practical User Introduction

BeginnersPrerequisitesNew

This course sets out to introduce simple computing tools for molecular biologists. It is intended for users with a reasonable background in molecular biology but little or no experience of using the available computer resources. The course is based around an investigation into the disease aniridia. We have chosen a well researched human topic as it allows us best to demonstrate how information can be obtained both by analysis of raw sequence data and by interrogation of information resources where previously determined facts are organised and stored. Further information for this session is available.

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

• All University members (this includes Colleges and departments)
• External participants (where spaces are available)
• Further details regarding Graduate School of Life Sciences' eligibility criteria are available

Basic computing skills, graduate level in Life Sciences

Number of sessions: 3

• Use of various information and data resources available over the internet to identify and download specific sequence data
• Investigation of various ways to compare pairs (and larger sets) of sequences
• Searching the sequence databases for entries matching a given query sequence (database searching primarily using the program blast)
• A range of analyses of nucleotide sequence including: restriction mapping; primer design; gene identification; DNA to protein translation
• A number of ways to investigate protein properties
• Access the protein structure databases and viewing structures

• To provide a basic appreciation of the possibilities and limitations of Bioinformatics

Presentations, demonstrations and practicals

• Most of the analysis will be done using web resources
• For some simple tasks we will use public domain software running under Windows, primarily the EMBOSS and Staden packages
• The programs of the EMBOSS package can also be accessed from various web sites
• Course Timetable

3

A number of times per year