Meeting: EU-US Training in Marine Bioinformatics, June 16-28, 2013 Newark, Delaware USA

University Of Delaware, Newark DE

Investigators

Abstract

Modern molecular and genomic approaches have enabled biologists to ask and answer questions that had previously been intractable. These modern approaches yield vast volumes of data, which require the use of computational tools for effective and efficient analysis. Marine microbiologists are increasingly employing such methods to interrogate complex marine microbial communities, which have defied greater understanding by use of other approaches. However, most marine science educational programs are not prepared to offer the computational training needed to utilize the most modern tools. A course in marine bioinformatics will be offered to train today's marine scientists in these modern computational tools to enhance their ability to gain novel understanding and insights about these marine microbial systems. These training needs are recognized in the US as well as in the European Union. The training course will be held for the second year, this time at the Delaware Biotechnology Institute in Newark, Delaware in June 2013. The main aims of the Marine Bioinformatics training course are to bring together young scientists in a forum that will set the groundwork for future international collaborations. This course aims to provide a resource for graduate students, postdoctoral researchers and faculty to acquire the skills-set necessary to develop relevant experimental designs and for analysis of diversity, (meta)genomics, (meta)transcriptomics and associated environmental contextual data from the marine environment. The course will train 30 participants, with 15 participants from the US and 15 participants from the European Union. This award will support the participation of individuals from the US. Participants will be recruited from a range of backgrounds such as computer science, bioinformatics, marine microbial ecology, molecular microbiology, environmental science and oceanography. The course will be organized by scientific chairs: Jennifer F. Biddle, School of Marine Science and Policy, University of Delaware, Lewes DE, USA and Frank Oliver Glöckner, Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology, Bremen & Jacobs University, Bremen, Germany. This course will impact early career scientists by providing them broad interdisciplinary training to expand their research skills. Each participant will be required to report on their efforts to disseminate course material after the course ends. The course website can be found at http://www.microb3.eu/events/workshops/eu-us-training/2013.