Update: Bioinformatics training in Developing Countries11 January 2007 |
As part of a flourishing Advanced Courses programme, researchers from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and Wellcome Trust Advanced Courses recently ran a training course in informatics and genomic analysis in Kilifi, Kenya. This course, held at the KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Research Programme, is the start of a tour of workshops that will go to the Trust's tropical units in Vietnam, Malawi and Bangkok over the next three years.
The courses will be followed up with a laboratory course in each unit, taught by expert researchers from the Sanger Institute.
By sponsoring the courses in countries in the developing world, the Trust aims to build on the local institutions' strong scientific knowledge and front-line clinical research in order to offer their researchers up-to-date training in the fast-moving arena of analysis. The training also provides the mechanisms to keep up with new developments.
The course organisers have established a model in which, from each course, participants are developed to become tutors at the next course. In Uruguay and Kilifi, the Wellcome Trust has provided the computers and the Sanger Institute the expertise to set up a training room, so each site can be used as a base for future courses, building local capacity.
In this way, the Wellcome Trust and Sanger Institute are providing a sustainable model of teaching cutting-edge techniques to top researchers tackling some of the world's major infectious diseases.