Microbial Omics

Omics perform the collective characterization and quantification of biological molecules that translate into the structure, function, and dynamics of organisms.

This course aims to provide fundamentals and practical aspects of the state-of-the-art of omics technologies used to study pure and mixed microbial cultures such as whole (meta)genome sequencing, (meta)proteomics and metabolomics. The course also provides examples of how those data can be used to obtain information on the structure and function of microorganisms.

Fundamentals of omics techniques:

• Whole-genome and shotgun metagenome sequencing;

• Large-scale (meta)proteomics;

• (Meta)metabolomics;

• Brief introduction into other, more specialized omics approaches.

Omics data handling and interpretation:

• Introduction to generic omics processing pipelines and databases (where applicable);

• Applications, e.g. to the discovery of new enzymes;

• Data handling such as interpretation of omics data, e.g. discussing publications.