Meetings & Courses Program

Crossroads of Biology

Statistical Methods for Functional Genomics
June 23 - July 6, 2016
Application Deadline: March 31 2016

Instructors:

Harmen Bussemaker, Columbia University
Sean Davis, National Institutes for Health
Rafael Irizarry, Harvard Medical School
Tuuli Lappalainen, New York Genome Center

See the roll of honor - who's taken the course in the past

Over the past decade, high-throughput assays have become pervasive in biological research due to both rapid technological advances and decreases in overall cost. To properly analyze the large data sets generated by such assays and thus make meaningful biological inferences, both experimental and computational biologists must understand the fundamental statistical principles underlying analysis methods. This course is designed to to build competence in statistical methods for analyzing high-throughput data in genomics and molecular biology.

Topics Include:
  • The R environment for statistical computing and graphics
  • Introduction to Bioconductor
  • Review of basic statistical theory and hypothesis testing
  • Experimental design, quality control, and normalization
  • High-throughput sequencing technologies
  • Expression profiling using RNA-Seq and microarrays
  • In vivo protein binding using ChIP-Seq
  • High-resolution chromatin footprinting using DNase-Seq
  • DNA methylation profiling analysis
  • Integrative analysis of data from parallel assays
  • Representations of DNA binding specificity and motif discovery algorithms
  • Predictive modeling of gene regulatory networks using machine learning
  • Analysis of posttranscriptional regulation, RNA binding proteins, and microRNAs

Format: Detailed lectures and presentations by instructors and guest speakers will be combined with hands-on computer tutorials. The methods covered in the lectures will be applied to example high-throughput data sets.

2016 Speakers:

Nancy Cox, Vanderbilt University
Barbara Engelhardt, Princeton University
Anshul Kundaje, Stanford University
Adam Siepel, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Jussi Taipale, Karolinska Institutet

This course is supported with funds provided by: National Institute of General Medical Sciences.

Support & Stipends

Stipends are available to offset tuition costs as follows:

       

US applicants (National Institute of General Medical Sciences)
Interdisciplinary Fellowships (transitioning from outside biology)  & Scholarships (transitioning from other biological disciplines) (Helmsley Charitable Trust)
International applicants (Howard Hughes Medical Institute)

Please indicate your eligibility for funding in your stipend request submitted when you apply to the course. Stipend requests do not affect selection decisions made by the instructors. 

Cost (including board and lodging): $3,735

This button links to a short form which confirms your interest in the course. No fees are due until you have completed the full application process and are accepted into the course.

Students accepted into the course should plan to arrive by early evening on June 22 and plan to depart after lunch on July 6.