Bioinformatics is one of the compulsory elective courses offered by the Faculty of Biology at Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM). From the beginning, the course has a program that invites guest lecturers from outside the Faculty of Biology to become part of the “Tim Teaching”. This year, as part of the Academic Internationalization Program, Dr. Neil H. Tan Gana from the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of the Philippines College of Medicine was invited to teach “Bioinformatics for NGS Data Analysis” in two sessions. The lectures were attended by approximately 130 students from the Bioinformatics class and 20 participants from outside the class. The classes were held in a hybrid format, with the first meeting taking place in Room X and the second in Room IV, combined with a Zoom Meeting.
The first session, held on April 26, 2023, covered the basic theory of Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) and various applications or software used in NGS analysis. This was followed by the second session on May 3, 2023. Each session was conducted interactively, with Dr. Neil always starting his presentations with basic questions related to NGS. Students were able to answer these questions through the chat column or directly during the session. In addition, students were also given the freedom to interrupt the lecture if they had any questions during the presentation.
During the second session, students had the opportunity to practice NGS data analysis directly. Dr. Neil provided a case for the students to solve, and also gave tips and tricks for conducting data analysis and manipulation. Several commonly used software, such as “usegalaxy” and “kbase”, were also practiced during the session. Students expressed satisfaction with Dr. Neil’s explanations, as he explained the steps slowly and clearly. Ulfah, one of the Bioinformatics students, added, “I was very interested in attending Dr. Neil’s class. Not only did I gain new knowledge related to NGS, but I also had the opportunity to follow and solve problems given by Dr. Neil. NGS is currently very important for Biology students to understand, in line with the current developments in the field.”