Hi all,

We’re organizing our annual Berlin Summer School in NGS Data Analysis (June 15-19, 2026), and thought it may be of interest to this community.

This intensive 1-week, in-person course is designed for researchers and life scientists who want to gain a practical, hands-on understanding of next-generation sequencing data analysis without assuming extensive prior experience in bioinformatics. The course focuses on:

• essential computing skills for everyday NGS analysis
• understanding key NGS data formats and common pitfalls
• running real RNA-seq workflows (QC -> mapping -> visualization -> differential expression)
• structured introduction to DNA variant calling (VCF)
• working with a real Illumina RNA-seq dataset

The school uses proven bioinformatics tools to inspect and analyze real sequencing data with trainer support throughout. Note: single-cell RNA-seq is not covered as part of this Summer School.

We’re also pleased to have invited speakers contributing perspectives from both research and tool development:

• Prof. Dr. Martin Kircher (Berlin Institute of Health at Charité / University of Lübeck / UKSH) - computational genomics & variant effect interpretation
• Dr. Vladimir Jovanović (Freie Universität Berlin) - genomic data analysis & functional interpretation
• Dr. Jeremy Leipzig (TileDB) - scalable genomic data infrastructure & TileDB-VCF

This combination of structured hands-on training and insights from active researchers and developers tends to work very well for participants who want to apply NGS workflows directly to real projects.

Details and registration (first-come, first-served): www.ecseq.com/summer-school

Happy to answer any questions about prerequisites or the program.