Table of Contents: 2021 SEPTEMBER–OCTOBER No. 442
NLM Webinar: NCBI Virtual Workshop Series. NLM Tech Bull. 2021 Sep-Oct;(442):b7.
The National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) is pleased to announce the new NCBI Virtual Workshop Series. The workshop series aims to engage and educate people who use the NCBI resources for their biological/biomedical research, science education, and clinical application efforts.
Listed below are three upcoming virtual workshops that are now accepting applications. Please review the workshop descriptions to understand the intended audience. Each workshop will accept a limited number of participants to facilitate the best possible educational experience. Applicants will be informed of their status at least two weeks before the event.
More information can be found on the new Outreach Events page of the NCBI Insights Blog.
Date and time: Thursday, October 14, 2021, 1:00pm - 2:30pm ET
Description:
NCBI’s BLAST is the most widely used bioinformatics tool in the world. It was designed to use a nucleotide or protein sequence to search and quickly find similar sequences in large databases. While originally designed for studying evolutionary relationships, BLAST is now often used for identification of the gene name and/or source organism of the sequence, related sequences from other organisms (homologs), as well as the location of a sequence within a larger reference sequence, such as a chromosome or genome.
This workshop is suitable for beginner Web BLAST users and those who would like some tips and tricks to enhance their ability to use this powerful bioinformatics tool. The topics we cover in this hands-on Web BLAST workshop are derived from feedback and questions received from BLAST users.
In this workshop, you will learn how to:
We will also discuss when Web BLAST is not appropriate for your goals.
Register here: https://nlmenterprise.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_6PeXd4FCAsmwL66
Application close date: October 1, 2021
Application status notification date: October 5, 2021
Date and time: Tuesday, October 26, 2021, 1:00pm - 4:00pm ET
Description:
The use of genetic testing in patient care is becoming more common in clinical practice. While NCBI has long had resources for biologists to explore genomes, genes, and genetic variations, NCBI recently developed clinically-focused resources. This online, interactive workshop is designed for participants involved in clinical practice and/or translational research.
Based on a real-world case study, you will learn how to:
This module ends with a session where you will be given your own case study to solve.
Register here: https://nlmenterprise.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9FZGXhSCZp7GO8u
Application close date: October 8, 2021
Application status notification date: October 13, 2021
Date and time: Thursday, October 28, 2021, 1:00pm - 2:30pm ET
Description:
Metagenomics is the study of genetic material collected from a mixed community of organisms within their original environmental conditions. Recent efforts in this field have studied clinical and environmental samples to characterize the taxonomic composition and biological properties of microbial communities within the living ecosystem. This work often involves large, complex multi-organism datasets and specific tools to untangle unique components of a sample. For years, NCBI has been storing and making available metagenomic sequences and their natural environmental origins (e.g., metadata) in a variety of formats. More recently, NCBI also created some tools for analyzing metagenomic data, such as MagicBLAST (a tool to align high-throughput sequence reads to a reference sequence) and STAT (a tool to map high-throughput sequence read data on a taxonomic hierarchy).
This workshop is designed for researchers to gain hands-on experience with accessing and analyzing metagenomic data using the various relevant resources available on the NCBI website. Additionally, some exercises in this workshop will provide experience with a Jupyter Notebook for bash- and python-based accessing and processing of this metagenomic data.
In this workshop you will learn how to:
Register here: https://nlmenterprise.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9zWTksF1VcSoqQS
Application close date: October 8, 2021
Application status notification date: October 13, 2021
