Bioinformatics: Molecular Phylogenetics

The course will provide training for bench-based biologists to use molecular data to construct and interpret phylogenies, and test their hypotheses. Delegates will gain hands-on practice of using a variety of programs freely available online and commonly used in molecular studies, interspersed with some lectures.

Course timetable is available here.

Please note that if you are not eligible for a University of Cambridge Raven account you will need to book by linking here.

This course is aimed at bench-based biologists with limited or no knowledge of the field of molecular evolution and with some experience of examining DNA/protein sequence data.

• Basic computing skills
• Graduate level in Life Sciences

Number of sessions: 3

After this course you should be able to…

• Reconstruct your own trees from data, choosing an appropriate set of tools and models
• Have an overview of the software available for phylogenetic reconstruction
• Know about the advantages and disadvantages of different phylogenetic reconstruction methods and make an informed choice
• Know how to interpret the results with regards to evolutionary information, robustness and potential inaccuracies

During this course you will learn about…

• The principles of phylogenetics and how to reconstruct phylogenetic trees from molecular data
• The different methods for phylogenetic reconstruction: parsimony, distance-based, maximum likelihood, Bayesian
• How to interpret reconstructed trees and assess their robustness
• How to test hypotheses with respect to trees and decide which model to use for tree inference

Presentations, demonstrations and practicals

3

A number of times per year

• Bioinformatics: Multiple Sequence Alignment and Phylogenetics
• Bioinformatics: Interpreting Phylogenies
• Bioinformatics: Introduction to Phylogenetic Tree-Building