MicroRNA profiling: From In-Situ Hybridization to New Gen Sequencing

Registration is now closed.

MicroRNAs (miRNA) represent a class of short, noncoding regulatory RNAs that are significantly involved in development, differentiation, and metabolism of most of eukaryotic organisms. The latest release of the Sanger center's miRBase repository (release 13.0, March 2009) contains 9,539 miRNA sequences (717 human, 567 mouse, 274 rat, 151 drosophila miRNAs) but this number is not definitive yet.

This EMBO course will focus on technologies to assay miRNA expression that are also able to deal with the "open-ended" character of, for the time being still growing, numbers of these molecules.

The main objectives of the course will be focused on the theoretical and practical aspects of methods used for discovery and profiling of miRNA expression such as in-situ hybridization, microarray & qPCR analyses, fluorescent sorting and new-generation sequencing. The practical part will also include data analysis, miRNA target prediction, correlation of mRNA and miRNA expression profiles as well as correlation of data obtained by various methods.

The course is open to a maximum of 24 selected participants. The course is intended for PhD students, junior postdocs and scientists working in research with practical knowledge primarily of microarray and qPCR who want to gain and enhance their insight to microRNA expression profiling approaches.

Applications from the industry will be considered to a very limited extent. The proportion of national students will be restricted to 5-10 % depending upon demand. In general, applicants from the host institute will not be considered.