Making sense of genomic data: COVID-19 web-based bioinformatics

Discover how to analyse SARS-CoV-2 sequences using web-based tools

Over the past decade, sequencing technologies have become more accessible and sequencing data has increased exponentially. However, bioinformatics capacity is still limited.

On this three-week course, you will learn the basics of bioinformatics concepts and explore the web-based tools used for viral data and sequencing analyses.

Develop your understanding of bioinformatics and SARS-CoV-2 data analysis

Although testing and sequencing capacity has improved, in low-and-middle-income countries (LMICs) bioinformatics analyses still represent a bottleneck in the implementation of effective viral surveillance programmes.

This course will introduce you to SARS-CoV-2 bioinformatics pipelines. You will then learn how to use the web-based tool Galaxy for bioinformatics analyses, including how to input and process data, build a pipeline, and use existing workflows.

Explore the process of identifying SARS-CoV-2 variants across global networks

Using COVID-19 as an example, you’ll be introduced to genomic epidemiology through the lens of data sharing across global networks. You will examine best practices for data sharing in public databases.

Then, you will move on to explore phylogenetics, the best tools to use, and the models developed for SARS-CoV-2 analyses. To tie it all together, you will learn how to create and share public health reports.

Learn from global experts in bioinformatics

The educators and developers of this course are experts in bioinformatics working on data analyses and SARS-CoV-2 bioinformatics in different parts of the world. With this experience, the team is uniquely positioned to help you understand and get a step up in web-based SARS-CoV-2 bioinformatics.

This course is designed for diagnostic and healthcare professionals, researchers, and anyone involved in the testing and analysis of disease samples.

It will also be useful to researchers specialising in web-based bioinformatics, diagnostics, diseases, or pandemics.

No formal prerequisites. Basic knowledge of analysis tools using Galaxy or UNIX systems will be useful.

• Introduction to viral genomics
• Welcome to the course
• Introduction to viral sequencing
• Next-Generation Sequencing data formats
• Introduction to web-based bioinformatics
• End of Week 1
• Exploring the pipelines available
• Quality of data
• Data preparation
• Predicting lineages and variants
• Phylogenetics and epidemiology
• End of Week 2
• Introduction to genomic epidemiology of COVID-19
• Metadata and bioethics
• Sharing data in public databases
• Using and displaying viral genomic data
• End of Week 3