Why this course?

• To provide hands-on skills in analyzing genes of interest and their associated protein structure, diseases, and metabolic pathways 
• To gain insights on various bioinformatics databases and tools important for undergraduate/masters/Ph.D. studies and research works. 
• To learn basic practical skills in bioinformatics that are important for research works on biosciences and related areas. 

Who should enroll in this course?

• Undergraduate/masters and PhD students, 
• Faculty members of life sciences interested in gaining bioinformatics skills, research staffs on biological sciences, 
• Computer scientists interested in developing biology-track bioinformatics skills. 

What can you expect from the course?

The course mainly focuses on key topics that would help to build a foundation on bioinformatics for research works on biomedical fields or to further explore taking bioinformatics as a career. This course covers basic bioinformatics and other topics important for laboratory research works. 

In addition, the course is designed in such a way that each trainee is encouraged to explore further and take their own route of learning during the workshops or/and on their own. 

Course duration

24 hours of hands-on (online zoom session), and over 30 hours of self-practice. 

The course is spread over 6 weeks, 4 hours a week, plus two hours of additional sessions within six weeks. Full schedule will be provided before the session begins. 

Training/program approach 

• over 90% practical/hands-on workshops. Basic biology is covered during the workshops itself. 
• Each trainee is given an accession number of a set of genes. Alternatively, they can choose      genes of their interest. 
• Each trainee will work on their own gene/protein to provide the trainee an opportunity to independently research their own gene/protein/sequences given. 
• The trainees will be able to produce a short report, thesis, or a bioinformatics-based manuscript if interested.  
• This training will lay the foundation for future intermediate and advanced-level training offerings in bioinformatics or related fields; some of them will be offered by NIRI in the future or a foundation to pursue higher studies in bioinformatics. 

Course fee

Individual: Rs. 7,000.00 

Group of three: Rs. 6000.00 each 

Group of five: Rs. 5000 each 

Fee for individual module/Week: Rs. 1500

Course Instructors

Rajendra Pangeni, PhD (Cancer Biology)

Tara Sigdel, Ph.D. (Biomarkers discovery)

Milan Bimali, Ph.D. Data Science

Saroj Sah, Ph.D., Molecular Biology

Ayousha Shahi, MS Plant Biology

Course Details 

Week 1: Program/Course orientation and introduction -4 hours

Program/Course orientation-2 hour

Basics of Genomics, Transcriptomics, Proteomics, and Metabolomics and their relevance in bioinformatics- 2 hr

Week 2: -Biostatistics, databases and tools-4 hours

Introduction to the Biostatistics-2 hour

Statistics are applied in data analyses, and why we determine statistical significance in experiments and databases. 

Databases and tools to analyze a gene/protein of interest-1 hour

Gene/protein structure, Open reading frame (ORF), sequence formats/FASTA etc- 1 hour

Week 3-Sequence analyses- 3 hours

Sequence similarity searching (eg. BLAST)

Pairwise/multiple sequence alignment and phylogenetics      

Week 4: Public databases and bioinformatics tools in laboratory-based research works-4 hours

Detecting/determining mutation/expression of a gene of interest – 2 hours

Primer design to amplify gene to detect if the given gene is mutated and to determine its expression at mRNA level (qRT)

Exploring available disease databases (mutation, expression and DNA methylation) and retrieving the data for the gene (s) of interest- 2 hours

Week 5: Gene set enrichment analyses, pathways, and specialized future offerings -4 hours

Gene enrichment analysis, pathway analysis -2 hr

Individual presentation and Further learnings -2 hr