An Introduction to Solving Biological Problems with PERL

BeginnersPrerequisites

This course is aimed at those new to programming and provides an introduction to programming using Perl.

During this course you will learn the basics of the Perl programming language, including how to store data in Perl’s standard data structures such as arrays and hashes, and how to process data using loops, functions, and many of Perl’s built in operators. You will learn how to write and run your own Perl scripts and how to pass options and files to them. The course also covers sorting, regular expressions, references and multi-dimensional data structures.

The course will be taught using the online Learning Perl materials created by Sofia Robb of the University of California Riverside.

The course website providing links to the course materials is here.

Please note that if you are not eligible for a University of Cambridge Raven account you will need to book by linking here.

• Graduate students, Postdocs and Staff members from the University of Cambridge, Affiliated Institutions and other external Institutions or individuals
• Please be aware that these courses are only free for University of Cambridge students. All other participants will be charged a registration fee in some form. Registration fees and further details regarding the charging policy are available here.
• Further details regarding eligibility criteria are available here

• No prior programming experience is required
• Ability to use a plain text editor
• Very basic knowledge of UNIX would be an advantage

Bioinformatics, Biology, Data handling

After this course you should be able to:

• Write simple Perl programs to process biological data
• Understand Perl programs written by others
• Use core Perl modules in your own programs
• Know how to develop your skills in Perl after the course

• To enable bench scientists with no previous programming background to write simple PERL scripts and to understand and edit slightly more complex scripts

Presentations, demonstrations and practicals

• Free for University of Cambridge students
• £ 50/day for all University of Cambridge staff, including postdocs, and participants from Affiliated Institutions. Please note that these charges are recovered by us at the Institutional level
• It remains the participant's responsibility to acquire prior approval from the relevant group leader, line manager or budget holder to attend the course. It is requested that people booking only do so with the agreement of the relevant party as costs will be charged back to your Lab Head or Group Supervisor.
• £ 50/day for all other academic participants from external Institutions and charitable organizations. These charges must be paid at registration
• £ 100/day for all Industry participants. These charges must be paid at registration
• Further details regarding the charging policy are available here

2

A number of times per year