Grant: Planning and Dissemination Grant - Institute Community Support

Metagenomics, the sequencing of DNA directly from a sample without first culturing and isolating the organisms, has become the principal tool of "meta-omic" analysis. It can be used to explore the diversity, function, and ecology of microbial communities, and has enormous potential impact on health outcomes from obesity to inflammatory bowel disease and various other autoimmune diseases, among others. However, understanding how to handle and analyze these metagenomic data sets is neither trivial, nor a skill easily gained through the traditional academic environment. The increasing amount of research being done in the field of metagenomics is creating a critical need for informatic skills in this domain. Yet adequate translational programs do not exist wherein a researcher can gain the necessary informatics skills to evaluate metagenomic data. This reality was the impetus for the Canadian Bioinformatics Workshops (CBW) to propose development, delivery and participation in a new advanced topic workshop specifically focused on translating informatics knowledge, tools and resources for metagenomics.