Computational Genomics Summer Institute – Apply Today

 

CGSI – extended application deadline

Rolling admissions are starting March 15th.
Registration Fee:

$550 apply by April 1st
$650 apply by April 15th
$750 apply after April 15th
Subsidized housing for CGSI is guaranteed for anyone who applied by April 15th.  Housing for applicants who apply after April 15th will be given on a first come first serve basis subject to availability.

We have filled most of the slots in the 2018 CGSI Long Course, however, there are still a few available slots.
The long program has been a huge success last year and many people were not able to be admitted as they did not apply on time – make sure that this year you are not left behind!
There are also still available spaces in the 2018 CGSI Short Course.
Register now to get the lower rate and subsidized housing.

DATES
SHORT PROGRAM #1: July 16 – 20, 2018
SHORT PROGRAM #2: July 30 – August 3, 2018
LONG PROGRAM: July 11 – August 3, 2018

@ UCLA Campus, Los Angeles
Visit our website to learn more.

The application is open!

Apply now for this upcoming summer’s Short and Long Courses:

STEP #1 APPLY
STEP #2 SEND YOUR CV

 

Watch the best talks in 2018 CGWI

Our first offering of the Computational Genomics Winter Institute was a success. In our feedback survey, we asked the participants to pick three talks they wanted to highlight on our website. We would first like to emphasize that the feedback we got was that all the talks in CGWI were excellent. But we are happy to announce that the ones that received the most votes are the talks of Brian Browning, Casey Greene, Su-In Lee, and John Novembre. We now have links to these videos highlighted on the front page of CGWI for easy access, and links to all of the talks are also available at the CGSI website.

Su-In Lee: “Interpretable Machine Learning for Precision Medicine.”


Casey Greene: “Deep learning: privacy preserving data sharing along with some hints and tips.”


John Novembre: “Computational tools for understanding geographic structure in genetic variation data.”

The 2018 CGSI Organizers

CGSI Co-organizers:
Fereydoun Hormozdiari, UC Davis
David Koslicki, Oregon State University
Kirk Lohmueller, UCLA
Ran Blekhman, University of Minnesota

CGSI Program Co-directors:
Eleazar Eskin, UCLA
Eran Halperin, UCLA
Dima Shlyakhtenko, UCLA IPAM

CGSI Steering Committee
Eleazar Eskin, UCLA
Eran Halperin, UCLA
John Novembre, University of Chicago
Ben Raphael, Princeton University

Addressing the Digital Divide in Contemporary Biology: Lessons from Teaching UNIX

Serghei Mangul and Lana Martin, together with Alexander Hoffmann, Matteo Pellegrini, and Eleazar Eskin, recently published a paper describing a workshop model for training scientists, who have no computer science background, to use UNIX. Our paper is available online as a preprint and will appear in an upcoming “Scientific Life” section of Trends in Biotechnology.

Scientists who are not trained in computer science face an enormous challenge analyzing high-throughput data. Serghei developed a series of workshops in response to growing demand for life and medical science researchers to analyze their own data using the command line.

Administered by UCLA’s Institute for Quantitative and Computational Biosciences (QCBio), these workshops are designed to help life and medical science researchers use applications that lack a graphical interface. Our paper presents a training model for these workshops—a flexible approach that can be implemented at any institution to teach use of command-line tools when the learner has little to no prior knowledge of UNIX.

QCBio currently offers similar workshops to the UCLA community. In tandem with this publication, we created an online catalogue of resources and papers aimed to provide first-time learners with basic knowledge of command line: https://smangul1.github.io/command-line-teaching/.

We encourage fellow instructors of Bioinformatics, as well as scientists who are new learners of the command line, to read our paper and share their thoughts! Email us at: lana [dot] martin [at] ucla [dot] edu.

 

The full citation of our paper:
Mangul, Serghei, Martin, Lana S., Hoffmann, Alexander, Pellegrini, Matteo, and Eskin, Eleazar. Addressing the Digital Divide in Contemporary Biology: Lessons from Teaching UNIX. Trends in Biotechnology; doi: 10.1016/j.tibtech.2017.06.007.

Advance preprint copies of our paper may be downloaded here: http://www.cell.com/trends/biotechnology/fulltext/S0167-7799(17)30156-7

First Annual Bioinformatics Minor End-of-Year Celebration

On Wednesday, June 7, faculty, staff, and undergraduates began a new tradition for the UCLA Bioinformatics Minor Program. Prof. Eleazar Eskin, chair of the Minor Program, hosted the first annual Bioinformatics Minor End-of-Year Celebration to recognize and celebrate undergraduates who completed the requirements for the Minor.

This year’s celebration took place in the Hacienda Room at the Faculty Center. In attendance were faculty and staff from the Schools of Medicine, Engineering, and Life Sciences, and from the Office of Academic and Student Affairs. The reception kicked off with a poster session presenting research completed during the Minor program. As a founding faculty member of the Minor, Prof. Eskin shared a few remarks on the small-scale origins—and upward-scaling trajectory—of the Minor Program. Since 2012, the Minor has succeeded at providing non-computational students with a solid foundation in, and familiarity with, active research problems at the interface of computer science, biology, and mathematics.

Greg Darnell, a UCLA alumnus who completed the Bioinformatics Minor in 2013 and is now a PhD student in Bioinformatics at Princeton, delivered a keynote speech. Mr. Darnell emphasized the extent to which the field of Bioinformatics has changed since he began coursework and research as an undergraduate at UCLA in the early 2010s. Recent “big data” explosions in the Biosciences have created exciting challenges and opportunities for emerging scholars—such as the graduates honored at this reception.

Twenty students were awarded certificates of recognition for their intellectual curiosity, creativity and dedication to interdisciplinary studies. These students join a unique and exemplary group of Bioinformatics Minor graduates who have made their mark in one of UCLA’s most challenging and unique academic programs, spanning Engineering, Biology, and Medicine.

In addition, Prof. Eskin presented three cash research awards to students, Brandon Jew, Ruth Johnson, and Michael Thompson, who demonstrated exceptional talent in their Bioinformatics research projects. Faculty and staff associated with the UCLA Bioinformatics Minor Program are excited to continue this new tradition, including the awarding of certificates and research awards, in future Spring quarters.

Congratulations to the 2016-17 graduates and graduating seniors in the Bioinformatics Minor! In addition to this year’s graduates, a certificate of recognition was also presented to past graduates Leah Briscoe (‘16), Alec Chiu (’16), and Greg Darnell (‘13). Go Bruins!

2016-17 Bioinformatics Minor Graduates:
Ariane Ayer
Andrea Castro
Elizabeth Chin
Qing Dai
Crystal Han
Brandon Jew
Ruth Johnson
Maegan Lu
Anastasia Lukianchikov
Cristian Medina
Douglas Meyer
Sepideh Parhami
Xingyi Shi
Christian Garrison St Pierre
Michael Thompson
Neerja Vashist
Linqing Wei
Anthony Bohr Zhu

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

See other blog posts on undergraduate training at UCLA: