In this proseminar, some basic topics in bioinformatics will be addressed. Each participant will present a talk and write a short paper on your talk. 

In more detail, each participant will be given one-three papers to read and to present to the class. The goal is to provide an interesting presentation that the listeners can learn something from. Read the papers that you have been assigned, it is usually useful to find and read additional sources, and then develop the storyline of your presentation. The presentation should have a start (very brief outline of what is to come, then context and relevance of the topic), middle (main description of the technical material, should be easy to follow, but should contain something slightly more challenging, the crux of the talk) and then an ending (very short summary, or conclusions, or discussion or outlook). The presentation should be about 30 minutes in length. (Presenting a talk that is exactly 30 minutes long is a challenge.)

In addition, a write-up of the presentation is required. The write-up should discuss the topic in your own words, be formatted as a scientific article and be around 8-10 pages long. Think of it as a write-up of the narrative of your presentation. We are going to include the elements of the scientific writing and presentation courses. We will provide extensive feedback on both the technical issues in presentation and writing, as well as the content.

In both the presentation and in the write-up, please make sure that any text or figure that you did not produce yourself is clearly labeled with the source. For figures, the source must be named next to the figure, e.g. using (Image source: Foo et al, Nature, 2016). 

All participants are required to attend all talks and to contribute actively to discussions. 

Schedule

The following time-table is only an outline and is subject to changes.