The first European bioinformatics course organized by members from the Josep Carreras Leukaemia Research Institute has been a big success. The organizers were Roberto Malinverni, David Corujo, Sarah Hurtado-Bagès and Marguerite-Marie Le Pannérer, from Marcus Buschbeck's laboratory.

The course was organized within the European COST ACTION CM1406, a network financed by the European Union, for young scientists across the network to improve their skills and understanding of bioinformatics analyses of research data. Fifteen participants flew into Barcelona from 10 different countries and were joined by five local scientists. They spent three intensive days attending lectures and hands-on training sessions on Linux, R, ChIP-seq and RNA-seq analysis. The course lectures were given by trainers from the campus and external scientists and the organizers extend their thanks for their teaching to Izaskun Mallona (UZH, Switzerland) Salvador Casaní (BioBam, Valencia), Francisco Fuster Tormo (IJC), Mireia Ramos Rodríguez from the Germans Trias i Pujol Research Institute (IGTP), Bernat Gel (IGTP), Laureano Tomas Daza (IJC), and Marc Subirana (IGTP). Ana M Rojas of CABD in Seville came to give the keynote lecture where she presented the history of bioinformatics, the role of key women and men in the field and the current State of NGS data interpretation and current challenges facing the field to over 70 professionals from the Can Ruti Campus.

The feedback received so far has been very encouraging : “It is one of the best workshops I have ever attended. It was really impressive, and you have made me want to specialise in bioinformatics. “ said one student. “If you organise a second workshop (a follow-up of this workshop) I would be more than happy and interested to participate and learn more” said another.

The organizers all agreed that it has been an intensive two-and-a-half-day event after a busy 3 months organizing, but that it has been a great experience. “At the end of the day, the most important thing is that the students were pleased with the course and felt that they had learned a lot,” explained David Corujo. “The course has been hard work, but very practical and we are exploring ways to offer it to more people at the IJC and on our own campus in the future.”