Table of Contents: 2022 SEPTEMBER–OCTOBER No. 448
NCBI Virtual Workshop Series: How BLAST Works & Using Web BLAST Effectively! and Using NCBI's Primer-BLAST to Design and Analyze PCR Primers. NLM Tech Bull. 2022 Sep-Oct;(448):b5.
The National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) is pleased to announce two upcoming virtual workshops that are now accepting applications. The NCBI Education Team invites you to apply and share this opportunity with any colleagues who may be interested. We would appreciate it if you could publicize these workshops to researchers and educators at your institutions.
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: How BLAST Works & Using Web BLAST Effectively!
Date and time: Tuesday, October 18, 2022, 1:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m. ET
Description: NCBI’s BLAST is one of the most widely used bioinformatics tool in the world. It was designed to use a nucleotide or protein sequence to search and quickly find similar sequences in very large databases. While originally designed for studying evolutionary relationships, BLAST is now often used for identification of: the gene name and/or source organism of the sequence, related sequences from other organisms (homologs), as well as the location of a sequence within a larger reference sequence, such as a chromosome or genome.
This workshop is suitable both for beginner Web BLAST users and those who would like an update and some tips and tricks to enhance their ability to use this powerful bioinformatics tool. The topics we cover in this hands-on Web BLAST workshop come directly from feedback and questions we’ve received from people like you.
In this workshop, you’ll learn how to:
This workshop is designed for an overview of some basic BLAST tasks. If you would like to learn more about Primer-BLAST, specifically, please consider signing up for the workshop listed below instead.
Apply here: https://ncbiinsights.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/event/web-blast-10-22/
Application close date: October 10, 2022
Title: Using NCBI's Primer-BLAST to Design and Analyze PCR Primers
Date and time: Thursday, October 20, 2022, 1:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m. ET
Description: Biological researchers often design specific PCR primers to amplify a single genomic or mRNA template or a set of closely related templates. In addition, PCR amplification with specially designed primers is sometimes used to identify an organism or group of organisms based on targeted RNA or genomic DNA amplification of an isolate. NCBI’s Primer-BLAST combines the primer design features of the popular Primer3 package with a specificity check that uses nucleotide BLAST to search for target and non-target matches in a background database. Primer-BLAST primers are suitable for use in all PCR-based molecular biology protocols including target identification/verification, cloning, variant analysis, and gene expression.
In this workshop, you will learn to:
This workshop is designed for people familiar with Web BLAST and focuses on the more specific Primer-BLAST application. If you would like to learn about Web BLAST, please consider signing up for the workshop listed above instead.
Apply here: https://ncbiinsights.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/event/primer-blast-10-22/
Application close date: October 10, 2022
Due to curricular and technical limits, we’ve capped the number of spots to provide the best workshop experience. If 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 FAQs 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.
