We are looking for highly motivated and bright individuals interested in high-throughput cutting-edge data analyses methods in genomics (computational positions). Available positions:

Applications are invited from suitable candidates in both, the Max Planck India Partner Program and the CRP Wheat Program for openings at the levels:

Minimum qualification Salary scale (per month)

Project assistant Bachelor’s / Master’s Rs. 10000 / Rs. 14000

Project fellow (junior data analyst) Masters + research experience Rs. 16000

Research fellow (senior data analyst) Masters + adequate research experience/desirable skill sets Rs. 22000

Research Associated PhD (<1yr) / > 1 yr experience Rs. 28000 / Rs. 32000

Condition to satisfactory performance, availability of funds and requirements of the project, the positions could be available upto a period of ~2 years (or funding of the project).

Essential qualification: MSc/BTech/MTech/PhD (or other suitable qualification) in discipline related to bioinformatics, computational biology, computer application (or equivalent)/ ‘Advance PostGraduate Diploma in Bioinformatics’. Proficiency in one of the programming languages or statistics (proficient in R for example) is compulsory.

Desirable qualification:

1. Programming experiences in at least one low level language such as C/C++ and one scripting language such as Perl/Python/PHP and knowledge of SQL/MySQL.

2. Substantial experience in the linux or other unix environments.

Application process: Applications should contain CV along with brief description (maximum 1 page) of research conducted (highlighting skills and experience) till now. Applications should be sent by email to Shree P. Pandey, Department of Biological Sciences, IISER-Kolkata, Mohanpur Campus, West Bengal within 2 weeks (Feb 19th 2015). E-mail: sppiiserkol@gmail.com, sppandey@iiserkol.ac.in Brief description of the group: We are an interdisciplinary group focusing on small-RNA (miRNA, siRNA) mediated regulation of signaling and defense. Project equally involve bioinformatics and systems biology (specially microarrays and next-generation sequencing (NGS) data analysis and its use), along with plant molecular biology, genetic engineering, field biology, and analytical plant chemistry for understanding response of plants to biotic stresses. For more details visit: http://www.iiserkol.ac.in/~sppandey/

Advertisement:

www.iiserkol.ac.in/images/iiserk/advertisements/advertisement_7_spp_feb_2015.pdf

More at https://software.broadinstitute.org/gatk/download/bundle

ftp://ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/snp/organisms/human_9606/VCF/GATK/.

ftp://ftp.broadinstitute.org/bundle/hg38/hg38bundle/

Address of the bookmark: https://console.cloud.google.com/storage/browser/genomics-public-data/resources/broad/hg38/v0?pli=1

Name of the Post: Research Associate
No. of the Post: 01 One
Age Limit: Max. 35 years
Salary: Rs. 22000/- per month plus HRA

Required Job Profile:
Candidate must possess M.Sc. in bioinformatics or biotechnology from recognized university or institute.
Desired Job Profile;
Candidate having Ph.D. or pursuing Ph.D. in the related subject or equivalent published work in reputed peer reviewed journals or advance PG dipoma in bioinformatics course.

How to apply:
Eligible and interested candidates should need to send the bio-data and bring all related documents in original and set of attested copies of the same in the time of interview.

Last date: 16.02.2015
Refer to http://www.nehu.ac.in/Advertisements/BIFTuraAdvt_221214.pdf

Summary
Employer Address: Dr.B.K. Mishra Coordinator BIF, RDAP Department, North Eastern Hill University, Tura Campus, Tura, Meghalaya
Email: drbkm1972@yahoo.co.in;birendramishra14@gmail.com
URL: http://www.nehu.ac.in/Advertisements/BIFTuraAdvt_221214.pdf
Phone: 03651-223107
Required Skills: not mentioned / required for this post
Required Experience: not mentioned / required for this job post
Required Education: M.Sc. in bioinformatics or biotechnology from recognized university or institute.
Job Location: Tura, Meghalaya, India

The bpRNA code is written in perl and requires the Graph perl module. Several additional scripts for analysis are included. The source code is available at http://github.com/hendrixlab/bpRNA.

Address of the bookmark: http://github.com/hendrixlab/bpRNA

Installation

To download the development version of pacman:

Download the zip ball or tar ball, decompress and run R CMD INSTALL on it, or use the devtools package to install the development version:

## Make sure your current packages are up to date
update.packages()
## devtools is required
devtools::install_github("trinker/pacman")

Note: Windows users need Rtools and devtools to install this way.

More at https://github.com/trinker/pacman

Protein-protein and protein-DNA/RNA docking based on a hybrid algorithm of template-based modeling and ab initio free docking.

The HDOCK server distinguishes itself from similar docking servers in its ability to support amino acid sequences as input and a hybrid docking strategy in which experimental information about the protein–protein binding site and small-angle X-ray scattering can be incorporated during the docking and post-docking processes.

Address of the bookmark: http://hdock.phys.hust.edu.cn/

Young Professional II (Computer Science/Applications)
Master degree in Computer Science/Computer Applications/B.Tech (Computer Science) or equivalent.
Desirable: 1. Knowledge of Statistical and Computational Genomics/ Proteomics/ Bioinformatics/Data mining tools. 2. Experience in handling HPC, programming languages and database management packages.
A consolidated salary of Rs.25,000/- per month.
21 to 45 year

Young Professional II (Biotechnology/ Bioinformatics)
Master degree in Bioinformatics/ Biotechnology/ B. Tech(Biotech) or equivalent. Desirable: 1. Knowledge of Computational Genomics/Proteomics/Bioinformatics. 2. Expertise in NGS data analysis and knowledge of allied software and tools.
A consolidated salary of Rs.25,000/- per month.

Senior Research Fellow
1. Bachelors degree with Zoology, Fisheries and 2. Master's degree in Fishery science/ Zoology with Fisheries/ Biotechnology/ Life Sciences with specialization in Fisheries/ Molecular Biology. 3. 1 st Division or 60% marks or equivalent overall grade point average.
Desirable: Work experience in Fisheries, molecular research techniques, bioinformatics and Computer skills. NET qualified
Note: The project involves extensive exploration tours and sampling from water bodies all over India
Rs.16,000/- p.m. for 1st & 2nd year and `18,000/- p.m. for 3rd and subsequent years +HRA (as per rules) 35 years for male and 40 years for female candidate

How to apply

A walk-in-interview will be held on 04th March, 2015 at 10:00 hrs at National Bureau of Fish Genetic Resources, Lucknow. Eligible and desirous candidates fulfilling all the requirements may appear for the interview with duly filled in application giving full details of academic records and experience(s) along with attested photocopy as well as original copy of the relevant documents and a passport size photograph on the attached proforma.

http://www.nbfgr.res.in/

Why Normalize RNA-Seq Data?

Normalization is a crucial step in RNA-Seq analysis for the following reasons:

• Sequencing depth: Different RNA-Seq experiments produce varying numbers of reads, making direct comparisons between samples misleading.

• Gene length: Longer genes inherently generate more reads, irrespective of their actual expression level.

• Bias reduction: Normalization mitigates technical biases, enabling meaningful biological interpretation.

TPM (Transcripts Per Million)

TPM measures the proportion of reads mapped to a transcript, normalized by transcript length and sequencing depth. It is calculated as:

Key Features:

1. Proportionality: TPM values sum to 1,000,000 across all transcripts in a sample, making it easier to compare between samples.

2. Intuitive interpretation: TPM values directly represent the abundance of transcripts in a sample.

3. Preferred for comparisons: TPM facilitates between-sample comparisons better than FPKM.

FPKM (Fragments Per Kilobase Million)

FPKM normalizes read counts by transcript length and sequencing depth, but without enforcing proportionality like TPM. It is defined as:

Key Features:

1. Historical significance: FPKM was one of the first normalization methods used for RNA-Seq.

2. Single-end vs. paired-end: In paired-end sequencing, FPKM becomes RPKM (Reads Per Kilobase Million).

3. Limited utility: FPKM values are not as robust as TPM for cross-sample comparisons due to lack of proportionality.

CPM (Counts Per Million)

CPM normalizes raw read counts by sequencing depth, without considering gene length. It is expressed as:

Key Features:

1. Simplicity: CPM is straightforward and computationally less intensive.

2. Application: Suitable for non-length-dependent analyses, such as comparing total expression levels or differential expression analysis.

3. Gene length agnostic: CPM does not correct for gene length, making it less ideal for measuring expression levels.

When to Use Each Method

• TPM: Best for comparing expression levels between samples, especially when transcript length and sequencing depth vary.

• FPKM: Useful for historical consistency but generally replaced by TPM.

• CPM: Ideal for differential expression analysis when gene length normalization is unnecessary.

Conclusion

Choosing the right normalization method depends on the specific objectives of your RNA-Seq analysis. TPM’s proportionality and robustness make it the preferred choice for most applications, while CPM serves well for differential expression studies. Although FPKM paved the way for RNA-Seq normalization, it has largely been supplanted by TPM in modern workflows. Understanding these methods and their nuances ensures accurate and meaningful interpretations of RNA-Seq data.

References:

1. Li, B., & Dewey, C. N. (2011). RSEM: accurate transcript quantification from RNA-Seq data with or without a reference genome. BMC Bioinformatics.

2. Trapnell, C., et al. (2010). Transcript assembly and quantification by RNA-Seq reveals unannotated transcripts and isoform switching during cell differentiation. Nature Biotechnology.

3. Law, C. W., et al. (2014). voom: precision weights unlock linear model analysis tools for RNA-seq read counts. Genome Biology.

It is possible to create a vector by typing data directly into R using the combine function ‘c’

x

same as

x

creates the vector x with the numbers between 1 and 5.

You can see what is in an object at any time by typing its name;

x

will produce the output ‘[1] 1 2 3 4 5′

Note that names need to be quoted

daysofweek ← c(‘Monday’, ‘Tuesday’, ‘Wednesday’, ‘Thursday’, ‘Friday’);

Usually however you want to input from a file. We have touched on the ‘read.table’ function already.

mydata

Now mydata is a data frame with multiple vectors

each vector can be identified by the default syntax

#if any of these are typed it will print to screen

mydata$V1 mydata$V2 mydata$V3

By default the function assumes certain things from the file

• The file is a plain text file (there are function to read excel files: not covered here)
• columns are separated by any number of tabs or spaces
• there is the same number of data points in each column
• there is no header row (labels for the columns)
• there is no column with names for the rows** [I’ll explain].

If any of these are false, we need to tell that to the function

If it has a header column

mydata header=T also works

Note that there is a comma between different parts of the functions arguments

If there is one less column in the header row, then R assumes that the 1^st column of data after the header are the row names

Now the vectors (columns) are identified by their name

#if any of these are typed it will print to screen

mydata$A mydata$B mydata$C

# Summary about the whole data frame

summary(mydata)

# Summary information of column A

summary(mydata$A)

We can shortcut having to type the data frame each time by attaching it

attach(mydata)

# summary of column B as ‘mydata’ is attached

summary(B)

Two other important options for read.table

If is is separated only by tabs and has a header

mydata

Really useful if you have spaces in the contents of some columns, so R does not mess up reading the columns . However if the columns or of an uneven length it will tell you.

If you know that the file has uneven columns

mydata

This causes R to fill empty spaces in a columns with ‘NA’ .

The last two examples will still work with our file and give the same result as with only headers=T

Graphs

to get an idea of what R is capable of type

demo(graphics)

steps through the examples, and the code is printed to the screen

We will work with simpler examples that have immediate use to biologists.

Remember to get more information about the options to a function type ‘?function’

Histogram of A

hist(mydata$A)

If there was more data we could increase the number of vertical columns with the option, breaks=50 (or another relevant number).

boxplot(mydata)

We can get rid of the need to type the data frame each time by using the attach function

# if not already done so

attach(mydata)

boxplot(mydata$A, mydata$B, name=c(“Value A”, “Value B”) , ylab=“Count of Something”)

same as

boxplot(A, B, name=c(“Value A”, “Value B”) , ylab=“Count of Something”)

Scatter plot

# if not already done so

attach(mydata)

plot(A,B) # or plot(mydata$A, mydata$B)

SAVING an image

Windows users (Rgui) RIGHT click on image and select which you want.

These instructions work for everyone.

You need to create a new device of the type of file you need, then send the data to that device

to save as a png file (easy to load into the likes of powerpoint, also great for web applications.

png(‘filename’)

boxplot(A, B, name=c(“Value A”, “Value B”) , ylab=“Count of Something”)

or to save as a pdf

pdf(‘filename’)

boxplot(A, B, name=c(“Value A”, “Value B”) , ylab=“Count of Something”)

Note

• Nothing will appear on screen, the output is going to the file
• Also it may not be saved immediately but will once the device (or R) is turned quit.

To quit R type

q() # If you save your session, next time you start R, you will have your data preloaded.

Or if you want to remain in R

dev.off() #turns of the png (or pdf etc) device, thus forces the data to save

http://novelseq.sourceforge.net/Home

Paper at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20385726

Address of the bookmark: http://novelseq.sourceforge.net/Home