PRE-CONGRESS WORKSHOPS

6-7 October 2015
Metropolitan Hotel
Athens, Greece

WORKSHOP 1

Title: MIQE- How to get good quality control in qPCR

Are you working with qPCR? Do you have control of the quality in all the steps of the analysis procedure? This course will go deep into the MIQE guidelines, describe the important steps in RNA and DNA analysis with qPCR and how you should work to fulfill the guidelines. To follow the guidelines will give you a better control of the quality of your results. The course is theoretical.

The course content includes:

• What is the MIQE guidelines?
• Why are they important?

• Different approaches for nucleic acid extraction
• How can we check the quality of extracted samples?
• How do we identify inhibitory samples?
   

• Pros and cons for different strategies
• Different priming strategies for reverse transcription
   

• How to search for gene sequences
• Which are the factors that affect design?
• How do we avoid primer dimer formation?
• Other important considerations for primer design
• How to design hydrolysis probes
   

• Which factors affect the PCR?
• Which factors can be optimized?
   

• How to determine LOD and LOQ
• Precision estimation
• Which controls to use
   

• How does qPCR software process the data?
• How to evaluate curves and set threshold
   

• Different ways to normalize
• How to find stable reference genes
   

• Quantification methods and equations
• How to do interplate calibration
   

• What is a suitable standard?
• How to do absolute quantification  

The course is held by TATAA Biocenter, that has been a qPCR course provider since 2001 and have trained thousands of satisfied customers. We want to share our knowledge with you too!

Course leader: Kristina Lind, Lead Instructor, TATAA Biocenter

Kristina Lind received her PhD in Molecular Biotechnology from Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, in 2007. She has held courses in TATAA’s regime since 2001 and is now responsible for the course program and core facility at TATAA Biocenter. She is also leading a group that is involved in the commissioned services at the company and is project manager for a number of customer projects. As assistant quality manager she is deeply involved in the quality control and how to work with qPCR according to the MIQE guidelines.

Place: Metropolitan Hotel, Athens, Greece
Date: 6-7th of October 2015
Registration fees: 690 EUR (Academic delegates),  790 EUR (Industrial delegates)

For questions or any further requests please send an email to workshops@spandidos-publications.com.

WORKSHOP 2

Title: Discovery and Validation of Expression Biomarkers - Experimental Design and Data Analysis

Target audience for this training course is researchers interested in finding and validating biomarkers using molecular methods. Basic knowledge of biomarkers and expression profiling is preferred. During the course you will learn how to optimize and validate experimental workflow for biomarker research according to forthcoming CEN and ISO guidelines. Learn also how appropriate statistics shall be selected and applied to identify promising expression biomarkers and how these shall be validated. Course is based on lectures and exercises using GenEx software. Bring your own lap top computer, the software will be available as a free trial version.

The course content includes:

Day 1 - Statistical analysis of expression data

Basic principles of statistics
Advanced principles of statistics
Statistical tests
Ability to detect a difference

Day 2 - Expression profiling

Multiplate measurements
Standard curves and calibration
Experimental design, Selection of references
Relative quantification, Comparison of groups
Expression profiling

The course is held by TATAA Biocenter, that has been a qPCR course provider since 2001 and have trained thousands of satisfied customers. We want to share our knowledge with you too!

Course leader: Mikael Kubista, CEO, TATAA Biocenter

Dr Kubista is the head of the department of gene expression at the institute of Biotechnology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, and founder and CEO of the TATAA Biocenter. He was one of the pioneers contributing to the development of quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR) and introduced qPCR for single cell expression profiling. He led the development of reagents for high throughput single cell expression profiling and quality control at TATAA. He also developed qPCR tomography for intracellular expression profiling. Kubista coauthored the Minimum Information for Publication of Quantitative. Real-Time PCR Experiments (MIQE) guidelines, was partner of the SPIDIA project, and is member of the CEN and ISO workgroups drafting the forthcoming guidelines on preanalytics.

Place: Metropolitan Hotel, Athens, Greece
Date: 6-7th of October 2015
Registration fees: 690 EUR (Academic delegates), 790 EUR (Industrial delegates)

For questions or any further requests please send an email to workshops@spandidos-publications.com.