Online Bioinformatics Training Options

Question

[John]

I want to just get online course on Bioinformatics / genomics - are there any open courses? Possibly free or low cost. I want short course so that I can keep learning, the topics of interest could be -

1. Unix and other computing environments for bioinformatics
2. RNAseq, DNAseq, sequence alignment
3. database creation and search
4. next generation sequencing

I do have university degree (+ 6 yrs post undergraduate) in biological science and good learning curve (motivated by interest) in computation biology. You suggestions are appreciated.

[parvan.zahra]

Hello all: I have a question, I have bachelor degree of Microbiology, and Master degree of Immunology, I want to continue my PHD degree in Bioinformatic, Do you think that with free online courses in Bioinformatic, I can get accepted in PHD into a University with full fund?

[Gjain]

It all depends on where you apply. But this will help you gain good understanding of the topics and beneficial during your phd.

[parvan.zahra]

yes of course it can be very helpful. But I need to get accepted in PHD course and I do not know that How can I prove my Bioinformatic understanding to them?

[Gjain]

your projects(grad/undergrad) and why you want to do a PHD...

[parvan.zahra]

My graduate thesis "Protein analysis of LPS-treated Macrophages which are exhibited to a cox-2 inhibitor drug by proteomics" and because my very keen interest in studying and that I want my job is related to research and university condition.

[parvan.zahra]

Hello again everyone, I have not given my answer yet, No one want help me? please answer my question if you know "Is there any free online course that can give me a license that prove my understanding of Bioinformatic?"

[Sandeep]

Publication would be your best bet to prove your understanding of the subject. As mentioned by Gjain, your grad/undergrad thesis would also be a value add.

[parvan.zahra]

Thanks for your answer but my thesis is not related to the bioinformatic too much. Beside it i am learning c++ programming at home because i enjoy it and I would like to enter a branch of bioinformatic that my programming skill is used. But in Iran I do not know where i can get an international license. I hope that i would participate in an online course to achieve that.

Answer 1

[Gjain]

Hi John,

There are many free online courses available. Some of them are:

• Harvard Extension School Computer Science
• Harvard Extension School Biological Sciences
• Machine Learning at Stanford University
• Introduction to Databases at Stanford University
• Berkley open courses
• MIT open courseware
• Khan academy for basics
• Youtube for specific topics
• Coursera for courses from prestigious universities

I hope some of these help you. I am taking Machine learning and few other courses from Stanford University.

[helo.aizek]

You guys can try https://www.udemy.com/learn-bioinformatics-in-6-days/

The current rating as of 16th January 2018 is 4.2 out of 5 stars.

Answer 2

[raunakms]

You could refer to some previous posts ...

• A: Bioinformatics Webinar/Seminar
• A: What Are The Best Bioinformatics Course Materials And Videos (Available Online)?

Answer 3

[Cath Brooksbank]

Hi John

You might want to try Train online www.ebi.ac.uk/training/online - the European Bioinformatics Institute's free online training resource. It's aimed at non-bioinformaticians and shows you how to make the most of biological data using the EMBL-EBI's data resources. We'd really welcome your feedback on whether you find it useful and what else you'd like to see covered there.

Other resources that might be relevant include:

• EMBER www.ember.man.ac.uk
• eProxemis (proteomics): e-proxemis.expasy.org
• eBiomics: www.ebiomics.org
• HSeT: www.hset.org/cms/

Hope this helps

Cath Brooksbank Head of Outreach and Training, EMBL-EBI

[John]

It is great...sure I will try it

Answer 4

[ALchEmiXt]

My suggestion would be to have a look at the Manchester distance learning courses in Bioinformatics and systemsbiology. My experience with free courses is that even though a great resource I still use, there is too much freedom to not finish or skip important less interesting sections.

Manchester is paid though.. But of excellent quality.. I got my msc degree from there as post graduate.

[Gjain]

I completely agree on what you said above. Its very easy to skip out things when other things at work pile up. But Stanford courses are good and if you want to get a certificate of completion, you need to study like a normal course. Its a good incentive.

Answer 5

[Ying W]

You could always search 'genomics powerpoint' and probably find lectures/slides from talks on scribed and whatnot. coursework and training are a little different imo, if you want knowledge without the classroom environment you could always look it up online and learn it.

• You could go here: http://korflab.ucdavis.edu/Unix_and_Perl/
• You could read this: http://rna-seqblog.com/ and some review papers
• You could go to ncbi and read up on how things are organized here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK44864/
• You could read some review papers and these blogs: http://seqanswers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5024

Answer 6

[Dan D]

If you want some hands-on training, try Galaxy's screencasts in tandem with the Galaxy public instance. You can jump right in and mess around with data.

Some may not consider this to be "in-depth" training, but if you follow the instructions in the video you will be working with real data, and doing things that bioinformaticians would consider to be routine processes or building blocks to more complex analyses.

Galaxy acts as a web-based front-end for plenty of standard informatics command-line packages like samtools and picard. This will give you a birds-eye view of the kinds of things these tools do. Then you can dig deeper outside of Galaxy if a particular tool or application interests you.

Answer 7

[adavut]

I answered in another question, you can take a look at Coorsy Bioinformatics topic.