- by Lale Ebrahimi
- 12 September 2020
The online workshop “Differential Gene Expression Analysis Via Affymetrix Transcriptome Analysis Console (TAC) (Microarray Data)” was held on 1st August 2020.
The mission of this workshop was the training of existing methods in Differential Gene Expression in control and test samples and catching results by various vast plots from TAC software outputs and its statistical interpretations to report in research papers.
The training included getting around and configuring the microarray principals, applications, and types. The context had microarray steps performing in the wet lab and how to analyze the outputs with TAC software.
The details of the session included the accessible directions to get raw data from the GEO database, importing and analyzing raw data by TAC software such as quality control, extraction of differentially expressed genes (DEG) to determining candidate genes for disease progression and their role in signaling pathways through EnrichR database and gene interactions.
Furthermore, the interpretation of different plots and pathways was taught to participants, and sample papers for any section were presented to clarify the application of the provided tools.
For the training communicators, primary workshop outcomes were:
- Discussion and troubleshooting through the considered supportive group, which provides direct communication with the workshop instructors.
- The accomplishment of the workshop project in a limited time makes it easier to validate participants’ knowledge in different sessions of the workshop, and about 87% out of 46 participants succeeded in obtaining a certificate of completion of the workshop.
- The contest questions were answered by diligent participants to get a discount for future workshops.
- Five eager participants, based on their statement of purpose, were eligible for the fund by OMITREEN to participate in this workshop with no fee.
We hope this kind of sponsorship stimulating enthusiastic researchers to move the boundaries of science, especially in the Omics area.
The online workshop was opened at 8:30 a.m. (IRST) with a welcome statement by the Head of OMITREEN group, Dr. Fariba Dehghanian, and she wished all participants a profitable and successful training workshop. This opening time was followed by her as the prior instructor of the theoretical and microarray topics statement of the workshop.
Afterwards, workshop sessions in the practical phase to use TAC and EnrichR databases to get DEGs for stomach cancer data followed by second instructor Laleh Ebrahimi and she interpreted the extracted results in order to use in reports and research papers.
The overall goal of this online workshop was to acknowledge participants to existing methods and data the onset of bioinformatics sessions and its meaningful aspects in the Omics area.
Besides, the training gave insight in estimating the validation of their microarray results in the lab and prevalent analyzing methods to get candidate genes, which could be proposed as prognostic markers and treatment key roles.
Impacts of the new insights by these methods, software, and databases are expected to facilitate researchers’ access to state of the art in various fields and novel ideas.
The education level of workshop participants, which are listed below, are mainly from research and academic institutions and, apart from some data gathering institutes and laboratories.