P54
Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex NGS made easy: data analysis step-by-step - an educative resource
A Spitaleri(1,2) A Cabibbe(2) A Ghodousi(1,2) C Stritt(3,4) G A Goig(3,4) L Rutaihwa(5) P van Heus(6) D M Cirillo(2) K Reither(3,4) S Gagneux(3,4) D Brites(3,4)
1:University Vita-Salute San Raffaele; 2:Emerging Bacterial Pathogens Unit, IRCCS San Raffaele Scientific Institute; 3:Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute; 4:University of Basel; 5:FIND, the Global Alliance for Diagnostics, Geneva, Switzerland; 6:University of Cape Town
NGS has a great potential to improve tuberculosis (TB) diagnostics and surveillance, in particular in the case of drug-resistant TB. The need for expertise guiding NGS implementation in laboratories and the lack of bioinformatic expertise are main obstacles hindering the implementation into TB programs.
We have conceived a series of publicly available on-line training materials to improve the basic and applied knowledge on NGS technology in the TB field. The target audience are health practitioners and researchers with limited experience in NGS. Pre-recorded webinars and hands-on bioinformatics tutorials present state-of-art TB-specific solutions for generating and analysing NGS data. All materials are hosted in Galaxy, an open-source, web-based platform for accessible, reproducible, and transparent computational biological research where bioinformatic pipelines can be used both for training and data analysis even without any programming knowledge.
The first edition was carried out as an asynchronous 5-day course where forty participants, mostly laboratory and technical staff, have autonomously followed the training on-line. The learners interacted with a panel of experts via real-time chat and live discussion sessions. The live sessions have demonstrated us that despite the digital nature of the activities, trainees felt motivated and engaged. Learning objectives were attained by at least 50% of the participants, as measured by formative assessments.
This resource is freely available for the community, providing training opportunities that lead to the acquisition of skills necessary to bring NGS and bioinformatics closer to high TB burden communities