The growing interest in microbial communities is due to findings that demonstrate the influence of microorganisms on human health. For example, microbiome research investigates the role of intestinal microbiota in diseases such as diabetes and morbus

Crohn or health disorders such as food allergies and obesity. In this context, an imbalanced microbiome is associated with being the cause or the consequence of certain diseases or health disorders. In order to identify and quantify the microorganisms present in experimental samples, meta-omics analyses (e.g. metagenomics, metatranscriptomics, metaproteomics) are conducted that heavily rely on computational strategies from bioinformatics.

The main objectives of this seminar are (1) to introduce both computational and experimental meta-omics methods for analyzing single microbial and microbiome samples with a particular focus on metagenomics and metaproteomics, (2) to provide a general overview on the most commonly employed and recently proposed bioinformatics strategies in the field, and (3) to discuss the shortcomings of current meta-omics approaches in the context of microbiome research and diagnostics of bacteria and viruses.