IITA holds bioinformatics training for researchers

Workshop participants and resource persons, Science Building, IITA-Tanzania.

Bioinformatics is a technology that manages and interprets the massive data generated by genomic research. It is a field where most researchers have the least expertise. To build the capacity of researchers in Tanzania, IITA, Inqaba Biotec, and CLC-Bio organized a two-day bioinformatics training in Dar es Salaam on 17-18 October at the hub.

The workshop aimed to give participants a better understanding, through theory and hands-on practice, on common sequence analysis techniques in basic and advanced DNA sequence analyses.

The training brought together 20 researchers not only from IITA but also different institutions in Tanzania including Ifakara Health Institute-Bagamoyo Research Centre, Muhimbili University of Health and Alliance Sciences (MUHAS), Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA), Government Chemist Laboratory Agency, Tsetse and Trypanosamiasis Research Institute, Mikocheni Agricultural Research Institute (MARI), and Tanzania Wildlife Research Institute (TAWIRI).

The training was conducted by Anne Arens, Field Application Scientist with CLC Bio, with technical support from Reinhard Eckloff Resseller, Mentor for Europe, Middle East, and Africa. Also present were Oliver Preisig, Executive Director, Inqaba Biotec, South Africa, and Fumbuka Adriany, Inqaba Biotec Sales area Manager for Tanzania and IITA’s virologist James Legg who was also one of the organizers.  

At the end of the training, James Legg, on behalf of the participants and as the acting officer in charge of the hub, thanked Inqaba Biotec and CLC Bio team for offering such a useful training to Tanzanian scientists.

He noted that bioinformatics was an important field and that researchers lacked the capacity to handle the massive data generated by research.

Anne Arens commended the participants for their active participation during the workshop and encouraged them to do more tutorials to be familiar with the software.