Bioinformatics Basics: From DNA to Disease

Saturday, August 3, 10:00AM - 1:00 PM

Sunday, August 4, 10:00AM - 1:00 PM

With the advent of new technologies, there is a vast and growing amount of biological data at our fingertips. But how do we find that data and actually use it? Bioinformatics is the field where computational tools are used to analyze complex biological data. As the technology producing these large quantities of data advances, so does the need to wrangle and interpret all of this information. To date, the main characters tasked with this challenge are computer scientists - as well as biologists with a knack for programming. However, user-friendly tools have been developed for those who seek answers within big biological data for questions about fundamental biology, health, and disease, regardless of programming experience.

In this workshop, we will introduce the basics of bioinformatics and help you dive straight into the belly of the computational beast… with no coding background required! You will learn what kind of data can be collected, how it is used to explore health and disease, where to find publicly available datasets, and how to visualize this data to discover biological patterns. We will guide you through a real dataset to extract interesting details about life directly on your laptop and then help you explore your own questions!

In preparation for the workshop we’d like you to think about these questions:

1. Why did you sign up for this class? What interests you about the topic of bioinformatics?
2. What physical characteristics do you share with your parents? The rest of your family?
3. What tests do your doctors perform on you when you have a checkup? Why do they do those?

For the class, we ask that you come prepared with the following:

1. A laptop computer with both R and RStudio downloaded. Downloads for both softwares can be found here.
2. A few sheets of blank paper and something to write with on hand each day.

We have also provided the following list of recommended resources if you are interested in an introduction to the biological mechanisms and technologies involved in biological data collection and analysis before we dive in on Saturday:

Recommended pre-class videos and readings:

1. Introductory Video: From DNA to Protein
2. Introductory Article and Video: What is Multi-omics? (And how it is being used in space!)
3. Why is the NIH giving over $50 Million to Multi-omics research?
4. Introduction Video: Dimensionality Reduction (PCA)

COVID-19 Safety Notice:

If you are feeling unwell, suspect that you have been exposed to COVID-19 or have tested positive in the past 7 days, please do not attend and let us know ASAP ([email protected]). If you cancel after our 7-day policy, we cannot refund your ticket, but we can exchange and offer credits toward future classes. If you have signed up for Biohacker Boot Camp, we will automatically transfer your registration to the next month’s dates unless you tell us otherwise.

Annalise Schweickart (she/her) is a postdoctoral associate in the Krumsiek Lab in the Institute for Computational Biomedicine at Weill Cornell Medicine. She holds a Ph.D. in the research field of computational biology and medicine, and currently is working to develop bioinformatic models to improve our understanding and diagnosis of complex metabolic disease, including Type 2 Diabetes, Breast cancer, and Alzheimer’s disease. She has a passion for sound science and finding signal in an ocean of data. Beyond research, she loves exploring biotech entrepreneurship, running, and sci-fi books.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annalise-schweickart-904896b3/

Twitter: @AnnaWeese2

Lab Website: https://www.krumsieklab.org/

Host or Publisher Genspace NYC