Connecting through science and making connections through the Genome Sequence Analysis – Asia course held on May 18-22, 2026. The Philippine Genome Center (PGC) is one of the partner classrooms in Asia during the regional pilot of the course hosted by Wellcome Connecting Science, sponsored by Google DeepMind, and in association with Khon Kaen University in Thailand, A*STAR’s Genome Institute of Singapore (GIS), National University of Singapore (NUS), the Philippine Genome Center (PGC), All India Institute of Medical Sciences Delhi (AIIMS), and Cancer Research Malaysia.
The course is a hybrid multi-classroom setup, wherein participating institutes are remotely linked and each classroom or host country had a representative instructor and facilitator. Participants from the Philippines’ remote classroom comprised postdoctoral scientists, PhD students, faculty members, and professionals actively engaged in research involving next-generation sequencing data analysis.
The five-day course provided a hands-on introduction to genome sequence analysis and equipped participants with the essential skills needed to assess and analyze sequencing data and to perform common analytical workflows. Participants, by the end of the course, were able to (1) use the Linux command-line and advanced Linux commands for automating bioinformatics tasks; (2) evaluate the results of quality control (QC) analysis of high-throughput sequencing data; (3) explain the algorithmic concepts underlying short-read alignment and variant calling, and apply relevant software tools in practice; and (4) develop bioinformatics workflows. These learnings were promptly put to use by the participants as they worked in groups and were assigned projects with various analysis tasks to complete.
As part of the course, there was also a fireside chat and networking activity that allowed the participants, facilitators, and PGC research staff to converge and share about each of their fields of expertise and areas of research. The activity also aimed to springboard the building of a community of practice for genome sequence analysis specifically in bioinformatics.
The Genome Sequence Analysis course organized by Wellcome Connecting Science is a collaborative effort in improving the future iterations and sustainability of genome analysis training, with plans for expansion throughout Asia and the Pacific.
For more information about this concluded course, visit: https://coursesandconferences.wellcomeconnectingscience.org/event/genome-sequence-analysis-asia-20260518/
The remote-linked classroom in the Philippines for the Genome Sequence Analysis – Asia course is facilitated by the PGC Core Facility for Bioinformatics (CFB). See more about CFB and their services here: https://pgc.up.edu.ph/services/bioinformatics/
