BioSB Core Course: Protein structures: production, prowess, power, promises, and problems (4th edition) Oct 30 – Nov 3, 2017, Radboudumc, Nijmegen - Course coordinator: Gert Vriend (Radboudumc) In the right hands, protein structures are a ‘power’ful tool to answer bio-molecular questions. Knowledge of the structure is a pre-requisite for rational drug design, for biotechnology, for chemical biology, and for answering a whole series of biomedical questions. In this course we will discuss the ‘production’ of protein structures by NMR, X-ray, and homology modelling. These methods all have their pro’s and cons so a certain ‘prowess’ is needed to follow all ‘promises’ and start attacking bio-medical ‘problems’ using protein structures. The course will be split in three parts: Part 1) Looking and seeing things in protein structures, learning to operate the software, understanding some of the algorithms. Part 2) Protein structure determination (prediction) with NMR, X-ray, and homology modelling, and the possibilities and problems that come with each of these three techniques. Part 3) Applying all that was learned in real-life example studies. Target audience The course is suitable for both PhD students working in structural bioinformatics as well as for PhD students in the life sciences who want to learn more about using structural information in their research. The course schedule accommodates both groups, parallel sessions for both groups will be scheduled when necessary. Read more <http://biosb.nl/education/course-portfolio/protein-structures-production-prowess-power-promises-and-problems/> ---------------------- BioSB Specific Course: RNA-seq data analysis (7th edition) November 6-8, 2017, Leiden University Medical Center - Course coordinators: Peter-Bram 't Hoen, Leon Mei (LUMC), Jan Oosting (LUMC), Szymon Kielbasa (LUMC) The BioSB research school and partner LUMC are organizing a 3-day course on RNA-seq data analysis. This is an advanced course for people with experience in NGS. The course will consist of seminars and hands-on command line, Galaxy and R practicals and will cover the analysis pipelines for differential transcript expression and variant calling. Examples will be taken from human and mouse studies. The course does not cover prokaryotic RNA profiling nor plant- and metagenomics aspects. Course topics: RNA-seq experimental approaches and study design Quality control and alignment Statistics for differential gene expression eQTL analysis and allele specific expression Single cell RNA sequencing Fusion transcript detection Small RNA profiling Software for RNA-seq data analysis Target audience Participants for the RNA-seq course should preferably have participated in the general NGS course or otherwise have demonstrated hands-on experience with NGS data analysis. The course is aimed at PhD students and post-docs, but scientific programmers and data analysts with a background in biology and bioinformatics may also attend. Read more <http://biosb.nl/education/course-portfolio/rna-seq/>