LOCALE: The National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (Durham, NC, USA)
DATES: July 9-19, 2007

Computational Phyloinformatics is a new course that aims to give students practical knowledge and hands-on skills in phyloinformatics.

SYNOPSIS

This course is designed to give graduate students, post-docs, and researchers in phylogenetics who have an interest in writing programs and scripting analyses the skills needed to tackle the grand challenges posed by the Assembling the Tree of Life program, Evo-Devo, Metagenomics, Phylogenomics, and other emerging research areas. Students will learn how to build and compute with phylogenetic databases; they will learn "power-user" skills for scripting analyses in Mesquite and HyPhy.

Students choose between either a Java- or a Perl-based environment for learning how to write basic phylogeny programs: parsing NEXUS files; traversing and computing over trees; and making practical use of phylogenetic libraries (e.g. PAL, JEBL, BioJava; BioPerl, Bio::Phylo, CIPRES interface). These skills will be learned in a biological context, touching on a diverse array of topics such as automated base calling, ancestral state and continuous character reconstruction, model selection, parametric bootstrapping, etc.

HOW TO APPLY

Students may apply through the website (http://www.nescent.org/summer_course). You will be asked to provide a resume, two references, a brief description of your computational and phylogenetic background, and your reasons for taking the course. Applications are due by April 15, 2007. International students may wish to apply for Travel awards from the Society of Systematic Biologists (due date: March 31, 2007, see website for details).

FOR MORE INFORMATION

http://www.nescent.org/summer_course