Using the Ensembl Genome Browser

BeginnersPrerequisites

The Ensembl Project provides a comprehensive and integrated source of annotation of, mainly vertebrate, genome sequences. This workshop offers a comprehensive practical introduction to the use of the Ensembl genome browser as well as essential background information.

This course will focus on the vertebrate genomes in Ensembl, however much of what will be covered is also applicable to the non-vertebrates (plants, bacteria, fungi, metazoa and protists) in Ensembl Genomes.

There may be some tools and topics that do not apply to non-vertebrates; if you have any questions about this, please email the Ensembl Outreach Project Leader, Emily Perry.

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

• Graduate students, Postdocs and Staff members from the University of Cambridge, Affiliated Institutions and other external Institutions or individuals
• Further details regarding eligibility criteria are available here
• Further details regarding the charging policy are available here

• Basic computing skills
• Graduate level in Life Sciences
• Knowledge of basic genetics and basic bioinformatics terminology is very helpful for this course

Number of sessions: 2

• Introduction to Ensembl: origin, goals and organization of the Ensembl project
• Worked example: guided tour of the most important pages of the Ensembl website
• Data mining with BioMart: retrieving datasets using the data mining tool BioMart
• Comparative genomics and proteomics: orthologues, protein families, whole genome alignments and syntenic regions
• Variation: SNPs and other polymorphisms, haplotypes, linkage disquilibrium, structual variants like CNVs

To enable participants to access genomes with confidence

Presentations, demonstrations and practicals

Participants are encouraged to bring problems/questions about their research to try to tackle these during the workshop using Ensembl

1

A number of times per year

• Bioinformatics
• Specialised Research Topics