Syllabus for GEN220: High Throughput Biological Data Processing

Course Description

This course focuses on computational skills for processing data using programming language Python and UNIX environment. No prior programming experience is required, but some basic computer skills will be useful.

With the advancement of high throughput data generation methods, a major challenge that graduate students in life sciences have to face today is to analyze large amount of biological data. The objective of this course is to provide an opportunity for graduate students with no computer science background to learn the basic skills of handling high throughput biological data. It covers the Linux/Unix environment and the importance of the com1mand line interface; the Python programming language; program design, implementation, and testing; BioPython; Strategies for analyzing genome resequencing, RNASeq, sequencing data. Students build hands-on skills by analyzing real high throughput biological data through homework assignments and team projects.

Units: 3

Instructor: Jason Stajich (jason.stajich@ucr.edu)

Time and location: W 4:00-4:50PM, F 3:00-4:50PM, Zoom-land

Office Hours:

https://biodataprog.github.io/GEN220_2020/

Prerequisites

Resources

None of these texts are required for completion of the course but they will provide a great deal of helpful background and examples that will improve your ability to master UNIX or Programming in Python.

  1. Bioinformatics Data Skills: Reproducible and Robust Research with Open Source Tools. Vince Buffalo. 2015 O’Reilly & Associates. Available from O’Reilly and Associates, Amazon Free to read on UCR network (or use VPN) - Safari link.

  2. Unix and Perl to the Rescue: A Primer. Keith Bradnam and Ian Korf. Unix and Perl Primer for Biologists

  3. Unix and Perl to the rescue! Bradnam and Korf. Amazon

  4. Rosalind - An online platform to learn bioinformatics and programming in Python.

  5. Software Carpentry - https://software-carpentry.org/ and Data Carpentry - http://www.datacarpentry.org/.

  6. Berk Ekmekci, Charles E. McAnany, Cameron Mura. An Introduction to Programming for Bioscientists: A Python-Based Primer. PLoS Comp Bio. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1004867

  7. Ken Youens-Clark. Tiny Python Projects. https://www.manning.com/books/tiny-python-projects

Grading

Homework

Projects

Schedule

Date Day Lecture Topic Notes
Oct-2 F Course Intro / UNIX I: Cmdline, GitHub
Oct-7 W UNIX II: Biocluster HPCC, Running programs
Oct-9 F UNIX III: Tools for data processing
Oct-14 W UNIX IV: Advanced UNIX and data processing
Oct-16 F Python 1 - Variables, running, cmdline, strings, math
Oct-21 W Python 2 - Logic, loops, lists, iterator; I/O reading/writing files
Oct-23 F Python 3 - Dictionaries, Arrays, functions
Oct-28 W NO IN CLASS LECTURE - Structured data (CSV, XML, GFF, BED)
Oct-30 F Python 5 - BioPython, Pandas
Nov-4 W Python Review concepts
Nov-6 F Alignment and Bioinformatics Algorithms; LAST, cmdline & automation
Nov-11 W Bioinformatics 1 - Aligning short reads, coverage, identifying variants
Nov-13 F Bioinformatics 2 - RNASeq analyses
Nov-18 W Bioinformatics 3 - Genome Assembly
Nov-20 F Bioinformatics 5 - Protein Sequence analyses (HMMER, InterPro, SignalP)
Nov-25 W Data Plotting and basic R graphics
Nov-27 F ** Native American Heritage Day; No Class Meeting **
Dec-2 W Bioinformatics 6 - ChIP-Seq, ATAC-Seq, 5mC methylaion data
Dec-4 F Bioinformatics 7 - Phylogenentic analyses
Dec-9 W NO IN CLASS LECTURE - Material will be posted - review major topics
Dec-11 F Class Presentations