Get Started in Bioinformatics workshop

Adelaide has a growing bioinformatics community, and many wet-lab biologists are keen to join. However, getting started can often be overwhelming for people with a non-bioinformatics and non-computer science background. This workshop aims to help people interested in bioinformatics get comfortable with basic concepts, connect to high-performance computing for the first time, learn basic Linux commands and install their first bioinformatics package.

On March 23, 2023, FAME lab PhD students in collaboration with the Australian Computational Biology and Bioinformatics Student Society, COMBINE hosted a workshop at Flinders University, Victoria Square campus in Adelaide, South Australia. The event was attended by 30 participants, with 60% of participants being PhD students, while the remaining 40% were honours students. Most attendees were described as ‘wet lab people,’ indicating a preference for hands-on laboratory work.

Feedback gathered from the post-event survey respondents indicated a strong interest in future events related to basic programming and bioinformatics-specific workshops. Suggestions were made to either have participants install the required software prior to the workshop or allocate a session for this purpose before the event.