Sloan Microbiology of the Built Environment Data Analysis Workshop (Davis, CA)

Sloan Microbiology of the Built Environment Data Analysis Workshop (secrets of QIIME, VAMPS and QIITA) January 6-7, 2015

Progress on the microbiology of the built environment, especially through amplicon studies, has been extremely rapid. However, analyzing and combining datasets has been increasingly challenging, especially as investigators use different strategies and techniques to collect their individual microbial and environmental datasets. This workshop, staffed by the developers of QIIME, VAMPS and QIITA, invite participants from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation’s Microbiology of the Built Environment Program or anyone working on related projects (i.e., studies of microbiology of the built environment) to learn hands-on how to use these tools on their own data, to perform meta-analyses that combine built environment datasets and other datasets such as those from the Human Microbiome Project, Earth Microbiome Project, American Gut and the Census of Deep Life, and to participate in the development of new tools and standards that will facilitate a new generation of research into the microbiology of the built environment.

The two-day workshop organized by Rob Knight and Mitchell Sogin will convene January 6 and 7, 2015 at the University of California, Davis in Davis, CA and will cover the cost of travel, housing and food. Successful applicants will have the opportunity to analyze their own datasets but must participate in a conference call to be held ~December 16th. Applicants should provide the following to Mitch Sogin (sogin@mbl.edu):

1. Detailed contact information
2. Current curriculum vitae
3. A one-page statement of your reasons for wanting to attend this workshop
4. A one-page summary of research experience
5. A very brief statement of expectations for the workshop.

The following is a preliminary schedule for the workshop.

Dec 16, 2014

• Required conference call: do you have appropriate data, what data do you have, what metadata do you have? Participants must attend this call to attend the workshop.

1 week before workshop (Dec 30):

• Conference call: verify that data and metadata uploaded correctly, fix any outstanding issues, etc. Participants must attend this call to attend the workshop.

January 5 — Travel day

January 6, 2015

• 9:00- 9:30 introductions
• 9:30-11:30 quick ways of looking at data in VAMPS
• 11:30-12:00 audience feedback on VAMPS
• 12:00-13:00 lunch
• 13:00-15:00 introduction to QIITA
• 15:00-15:30 audience feedback on QIITA
• 15:30-16:00 coffee break/last check on datasets
• 16:00 -18:00 participants introduce the views of their datasets and main hypotheses etc. — Max 2 slides
• Dinner/discussion

January 7, 2015

• 9:00-10:00 overview of key theoretical or technical issues prompted by participant projects (e.g. issues related to OTU picking, fungal or eukaryotic data handling, combining analyses, etc.)
• 10:00-12:00 exploration on own with availability of the developers to answer questions
• 12:00-13:00 lunch
• 13:00-15:00 exploration on own with availability of the developers to answer questions
• 15:30-16:00 coffee break
• 16:00-17:30 meta-analysis of all participant and other available built environment data
• 17:30-18:30 discussion of metadata, standards, and feedback on tools
• Dinner/additional discussions

January 8 — Travel day