The Africa Centre for Gene Technologies (ACGT), in conjunction with the University of Zurich, University of Pretoria and the Agricultural Research Council, hosted a successful whole transcriptome sequencing (RNA sequencing or RNASeq) data analysis workshop for researchers from the 1st to the 8th of February 2019. The workshop was held at the Hatfield campus of the University of Pretoria.
RNA sequencing aims to unravel the sum of all transcripts in an organism at any given moment in time and can give important clues to changes occurring in an organism following a variety of environmental cues or life stage transitions. The workshop started with two days of introductory courses in Linux and R. The introductory courses were facilitated by Professor Fourie Joubert from the University of Pretoria and Dr Rian Pierneef from the Agricultural Research Council. These courses offered the delegates basic command line skills needed to manipulate RNA sequencing data.
The two days of introductory courses were followed by a four-day interactive and hands-on RNA Sequencing workshop. The workshop was facilitated by renowned experts and academics from the Institute of Molecular Life Sciences at the University of Zurich in Switzerland: Professor Mark Robinson and Dr Simone Tiberi. Professor Mark Robinson is involved in research that applies statistical methods and data science to experimental data with biological applications within the context of genomics data types. Dr Simone Tiberi is a post-doctoral research fellow who is working on the development of cutting-edge statistical methods in bioinformatics, mostly for bulk and single-cell RNASeq data.
The workshop covered theoretical aspects of RNA sequencing such as new technologies, applications, experimental design, batch effects, dimension reduction, clustering, quality control, limma, normalization quantification and differential expression, among other things. There were also one-on-one sessions with delegates to address their specific queries or to clarify any issues that may have arisen. The delegates hailed mostly from the ACGT partner institutions; University of Pretoria, University of Johannesburg, University of the Witwatersrand and the Agricultural Research Council. The feedback from the delegates was very positive in how the course was designed, organized and conducted. The ACGT is hopeful that the course will be beneficial to all the researchers that came to the workshop and to those that work close with them.
The ACGT and all of its partners would like to extend enormous gratitude to Professor Mark Robinson, Dr Simone Tiberi, Dr Rian Pierneef and Professor Fourie Joubert for sharing their time and expertise with the attendees. The ACGT would also like to thank Professor Fourie Joubert and Mrs Itseng Malao for all of their assistance in organizing this event. The Centre wishes all the participants the best of luck with applying their newly learned skill to their work.
To view some additional pictures from the event please visit our facebook page.
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