Microbial bioinformatics
The tremendous growth of public biological databases has driven profound progress in modern biology. Bioinformatics and Biostatistics play an essential role in managing vast complex biological data. Students will acquire knowledge of the practical data science skills to transform large datasets into reproducible and reliable findings throughout this project. Students will use open-source tools (i.e., Unix Shell and R/RStudio) to solve bioinformatics/biostatistics related issues in their field of research (microbiology of the built environment, antimicrobial resistance and mobile genetic elements: plasmids and viruses). For instance, students will use microbiome databases from various environments (public transportations, hospitals, sewages, humans and animals) to assess phylogenetic and functional composition diversity of the microbial community, including plasmids and viruses harbouring colistin resistance gene or dog circovirus. Furthermore, students will study the covariates like locations, population density, climate, social/ economic factors and hosts that influence the structure of the microbial community.