The main objectives of this seminar are (1) to introduce fundamental methods of data handling in bioinformatics research with a particular focus on lab management systems, containerized frameworks and software workflow systems, (2) to provide a general overview of open science, sustainable software development, information security and data protection and (3) to discuss ethical issues, chances and risks with regard to fundamental research and personalized medicine.
Planned topics are as follows:
- Open vs. closed Science: chances and risks of open science. Open access and traditional publishing.
- Sustainable software development and reproducible research: open data and open source, code repositories, maintainability of software and code in the sciences
- Laboratory information management systems: sample management, integration of instruments and application, data exchange
- Bioinformatic workflows: Galaxy, Snakemake and KNIME
- Containerized frameworks: Advantages of using Docker, Bioconda etc.
- Information security and data protection: securing personalized data, relevance for data analyses in research, efficient handling guidelines of data security, potential issues with open science
- Ethical issues, chances and risks of omics research: immense opportunities when manipulating genome information, novel ethical questions need to be asked, „right not to know“, danger of discrimination against individuals or groups based on genetic differences
Organisational note: During the first course at the beginning of the semester, the aforementioned topics will be briefly introduced and course material (e.g. relevant publications) will be provided. In the second course, topics will be assigned to the attendees of the seminar.