We are offering a new course in the Canadian Bioinformatics Workshop (CBW) series this year on Informatics for RNA-seq Analysis.

Date: June 3 - June 4, 2013

Location: Toronto, Canada

Description: High-throughput sequencing of RNA libraries (RNA-seq) has become increasingly common and largely supplanted gene microarrays for transcriptome profiling. When processed appropriately, RNA-seq data has the potential to provide a considerably more detailed view of the transcriptome. The CBW has developed a 2-day course providing an introduction to RNA-seq data analysis followed by integrated tutorials demonstrating the use of popular RNA-seq analysis packages. The tutorials are designed as self contained units that include example data (Illumina paired-end RNA-seq data) and detailed instructions for installation of all required bioinformatics tools (TopHat, Cufflinks, etc.).

Participants will gain practical experience and skills to be able to:

• Align RNA-seq data to a reference genome
• Estimate known gene and transcript expression
• Perform differential expression analysis
• Detect expressed gene fusions
• Discover novel isoforms
• Visualize and summarize the output of RNA-seq analyses

Target audience: Graduates, postgraduates and PIs working with or about to embark on an analysis of RNA-seq data. Attendees may be familiar with some aspect of RNA-seq analysis (e.g. gene expression analysis) or have no direct experience.

Prerequisites for attendance: Basic familiarity with Linux environment and S, R, or Matlab. Must be able to complete and understand the following simple Linux and R tutorials before attending.

• http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Teaching/Unix/
• http://goo.gl/1lKJc

See the course website to apply and for more details on course outline, award opportunities, registration fees, etc.