NCBI Virtual Workshop Series: An Introduction to NCBI Cloud Computing for Biologists

NCBI Virtual Workshop Series: An Introduction to NCBI Cloud Computing for Biologists. NLM Tech Bull. 2022 May-Jun;(446):b9.

The National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) is pleased to announce an upcoming virtual workshop that is now accepting applications. The NCBI Education Team invites you to apply and share this opportunity with any colleagues who may be interested. Our NCBI Virtual Workshops series was developed last fall to expand our reach to individuals who use NCBI resources for biological/biomedical research, science education, and clinical application efforts. Please review the workshop description to understand the intended audience. Each workshop will accept a limited number of participants to facilitate the best possible educational experience.

Title: An Introduction to NCBI Cloud Computing for Biologists

Date and time: Thursday, July 14, 2022, 1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. ET

Description: As DNA sequencing becomes a commonplace tool in biological research, the need for accessible, scalable, and secure computational environments to process this deluge of data is growing. NCBI has partnered with leading cloud computing providers to provide tools and data to this growing industry. In this workshop, you will get hands-on experience with the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud environment using a combination of web-based and Linux command-line tools. We will guide you through a case study which involves aligning human sequence data to a reference sequence to identify variants associated with a genetic disorder. This workshop is designed for experimental biologists without cloud computing experience. While not required, it is most useful for researchers who do sequence-based research and who have some familiarity interacting with a Linux command-line.

In this online, interactive workshop you will learn how to:

• Navigate the AWS cloud console page and understand how to access and use some popular console-based tools
• Access and mine metadata for information in the NCBI Sequence Read Archive (SRA) database to select an interesting dataset for further study using the AWS Athena service
• Retrieve SRA sequence data and perform a sequence alignment analysis using the NCBI tool MagicBLAST
• Visualize the aligned data against the wealth of information in NCBI databases by uploading it to the NCBI Genome Data Viewer browser application

Apply here: https://ncbiinsights.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/event/cloud-computing-for-biologists-07-22/

Application close date: June 20, 2022

Due to curricular and technical limits, we've capped the number of spots to provide the best workshop experience. When you register to apply, you will be notified of your application status 2 weeks before the scheduled event.

We recommend having access to a stable internet connection and modern web browser on a laptop or desktop computer to be able to successfully participate in the hands-on exercises.

Please see our FAQ page for more information and if you still have questions about the NCBI Outreach Events program or this specific workshop, email us at workshops@ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.