The introduction to bioinformatics, a hands on workshop for beginners with colleagues from Warwick University at MRC Unit The Gambia (MRCG) ended on Thursday 9th February 2017. The 2-day interactive course which engaged students in UNIX (operating system), MRC Cloud Infrastructure for Microbial Bioinformatics (CLIMB) and bacterial genome analysis was a tremendous success. In attendance were PhDs and Post Docs from MRCG. The course focused on developing techniques for analysing sequence data and related structures with 16 participants from MRCG and international faculty experts from the United Kingdom.

The course featured 2 workshops on Beginner’s UNIX, using MRC CLIMB and an introduction to bacterial genome analysis. Participants took part in various interactive sessions aimed to foster learning. This course is part of the CLIMB project, which is a collaboration between Warwick, Birmingham, Cardiff and Swansea Universities and the Quadram Institute. At the end of the two-day workshops, students were awarded with certificates by the faculty committee. The 2-day course was funded by the UK’s Medical Research Council and organised by Prof Martin Antonio, Unit Molecular Biologist & Principal Investigator and Dr Assan Jaye, MRCG Head of Research Training and Career Development. The course tutors were Professor Mark Pallen, Professor of Microbial Bioinformatics, University of Warwick; Dr Maciej Filocha, Cloud Computing Manager, University of Warwick; and Dr Ben Pascoe, Post-doc Bioinformatician, University of Bath.