New online bioinformatics course designed for INBRE Scholars

A new online course was launched June 16 to help INBRE Scholars understand the world of bioinformatics and how it is utilized in research. 

Developed with funding from the NE-INBRE program, the seven-module course was created by Babu Guda, PhD, director of the Bioinformatics and Systems Biology Core and professor and vice-chair for bioinformatics research and training in the UNMC Department of Genetics, Cell Biology and Anatomy, and Jordan Rowley, PhD, assistant professor and co-director of the bioinformatics and systems biology graduate program subplan in the same department. 

“We redesigned a graduate level course that we teach, toned it down and gave it enough of an introduction so a college level junior or senior can take this course,” Dr. Guda said. 

“Introduction to Bioinformatics” is a 15-hour online course that students can take at their leisure that walks them step-by-step through how to find data, how to access it and how to use it in research. 

“We built each module on a different topic,” Dr. Guda said. “Each module builds on the last, and in them we talk about different databases and tools in the public domain that are available for use.” 

“We show them how to dig deeper into the data sets, how to do a power search using variables and the meaning behind each variable to customize their search in an efficient way to get the most out of the data, as well as how to manage the variable database,” he said. 

The course, specifically designed for INBRE Scholars, is accessed through NU Advance, the University of Nebraska Canvas platform, which will allow students from all of the primarily undergraduate institutions (PUIs) access to it, he said. 

The 2023 class of INBRE Scholars are the first to take the course, and Dr. Guda is looking forward to their feedback.   

The course was developed using the Articulate Rise 360 software with the help of Avinash Veerappa, PhD, and Sahil Sethi, who are members of Dr. Guda’s research laboratory.  

“We have included quizzes and flashcards at the end of each module to enhance retention of the material, as well as a way for us to gather feedback on how well the students learned,” he said. 

The course is free for INBRE Scholars, and eventually, Dr. Guda said, the goal is to make it free for all undergraduate students across the state.