Hands-on metagenomics using Oxford Nanopore DNA sequencing 2025
Enrolment options
The course is fully booked! Please sign up at the waiting list.
For inquiries regarding registration, cancellation or waiting list, please contact the PhD administration, phdcourses@adm.aau.dk.
Welcome to Hands-on metagenomics using Oxford Nanopore DNA sequencing
Description:
Microbial communities underpin all processes in the environment and have a direct impact on human health. However, despite their importance, only a tiny fraction of the millions of different microbes is known. This is mainly due to the immense difficulties of cultivating microbes from natural systems in the laboratory.
The field of metagenomics, where DNA is used to study organisms in complex systems, has seen rapid development for many years and together with the last decade of massive improvements in long read DNA sequencing technologies in terms of yield and read quality it has reached a state where getting complete genomes from many organisms is no longer just a dream.
The cheap sequencing platforms provided by Oxford Nanopore Technologies have disrupted the sequencing market with easy access to long read real-time DNA sequencing everywhere enabling more people to analyse the metagenomic information of complex samples.
In this course, the participants will learn to use nanopore based DNA sequencing combined with advanced metagenome binning techniques to discover novel species, recover high quality genomes from complex metagenomes and link extra chromosomal elements using methylation profiles. Hence, overcoming the cultivation bias directly and participants can begin their journey towards addressing global challenges such as climate change and antibiotic resistance.
The course includes hands-on DNA library preparation, and sequencing using the nanopore platform. The obtained data is subsequently used for hands-on bioinformatics including metagenome assembly, binning and genome annotation.
Participants:
The course addresses PhD students who want to apply nanopore sequencing and metagenomics in their projects.
Prerequisites:
- Basic knowledge of DNA
- Basic knowledge of bioinformatics Evaluation:
Students will deliver a detailed presentation of their individual work as well as the work from the group assignments
Tentative course programme:
| Monday 3/11 | Tuesday 4/11 | Wednesday 5/11 | Thursday 6/11 |
08.30 | Arrival | Lecture: Metagenomics | QC of sequenced Nanopore data |
Metagenome data- analysis |
09.00 | Introduction | |||
10.00 | Laboratory introduction + DNA QC |
Intro+using mmlong2 |
Metagenome data- analysis | |
10.30 | ||||
11.00 | Group presentations4 | |||
11.30 | ||||
12.00 | Lunch break | |||
12.30 | ||||
13.00 |
| Lecture: Data |
| Q&A competition5 |
13.30 | Nanopore library preparation and QC | processing & QC | Metagenome data- analysis | |
14.00 | Extracting of genomes from | Course evaluation6 | ||
14.30 |
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15.00 |
| metagenomes | or | |
15.30 | Flow cell loading and sequencing | Lecture: nanomotif | Sample preparation | |
16.00 |
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16.30 |
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17.00 | Buffer in case of | 1 min. student | ||
17.30 | unforeseen events | presentation2 | ||
18.00 |
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18.30 | Dinner + drinks in | Dinner + drinks in | ||
19.00 | town (own cost)1 | town (course pay)3 | ||
Organizer: Prof. Mads Albertsen, Email: ma@bio.aau.dk.
Lecturers: Søren Heidelbach, Sebastian Møllvang Dall, Rasmus H. Kirkegaard and Mads Albertsen
ECTS: 3
Time: 3, 4, 5, 6 November 2025
City: Aalborg
Number of seats: 25
Deadline: 12 October 2025
Important information concerning PhD courses:
There is a no-show fee of DKK 3,000 for each course where the student does not show up. Cancellations are accepted no later than 2 weeks before the start of the course. Registered illness is of course an acceptable reason for not showing up on those days. Furthermore, all courses open for registration approximately four months before start of the course.
We cannot ensure any seats before the deadline for enrolment, all participants will be informed after the deadline, approximately 3 weeks before the start of the course.
For inquiries regarding registration, cancellation or waiting list, please contact the PhD administration at phdcourses@adm.aau.dk When contacting us please state the course title and course period. Thank you.