The GOBLET Training Portal: A Global Repository of Bioinformatics Training Materials, Courses and Trainers
Reporter: Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN
The GOBLET Training Portal: A Global Repository of Bioinformatics Training Materials, Courses and Trainers
- Manuel Corpas1,*,†,
- Rafael C. Jimenez2,†,
- Erik Bongcam-Rudloff3,
- Aidan Budd4,
- Michelle D. Brazas5,
- Pedro L. Fernandes6,
- Bruno Gaeta7,
- Celia van Gelder8,
- Eija Korpelainen9,
- Fran Lewitter10,
- Annette McGrath11,
- Daniel MacLean12,
- Patricia M. Palagi13,
- Kristian Rother14,
- Jan Taylor15,
- Allegra Via16,
- Mick Watson17,
- Maria Victoria Schneider1 and
- Teresa K. Attwood18
+Author Affiliations
- ↵*To whom correspondence should be addressed. Manuel Corpas, E-mail:manuel.corpas@tgac.ac.uk
- Received July 8, 2014.
- Revision received August 29, 2014.
- Accepted August 31, 2014.
Abstract
Summary: Rapid technological advances have led to an explosion of biomedical data in recent years. The pace of change has inspired new, collaborative approaches for sharing materials and resources to help train life scientists both in the use of cutting-edge bioinformatics tools and databases, and in how to analyse and interpret large datasets. A prototype platform for sharing such training resources was recently created by the Bioinformatics Training Network (BTN). Building on this work, we have created a centralised portal for sharing training materials and courses, including a catalogue of trainers and course organisers, and an announcement service for training events. For course organisers, the portal provides opportunities to promote their training events; for trainers, the portal offers an environment for sharing materials, for gaining visibility for their work and promoting their skills; for trainees, it offers a convenient one-stop shop for finding suitable training resources and identifying relevant training events and activities locally and world-wide.
Availability: http://mygoblet.org/training-portal
Contact: manuel.corpas@tgac.ac.uk
- © The Author(s) 2014. Published by Oxford University Press.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
SOURCE
http://bioinformatics.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2014/09/03/bioinformatics.btu601.abstract
This is very insightful. There is no doubt that there is the bias you refer to. 42 years ago, when I was postdocing in biochemistry/enzymology before completing my residency in pathology, I knew that there were very influential mambers of the faculty, who also had large programs, and attracted exceptional students. My mentor, it was said (although he was a great writer), could draft a project on toilet paper and call the NIH. It can’t be true, but it was a time in our history preceding a great explosion. It is bizarre for me to read now about eNOS and iNOS, and about CaMKII-á, â, ã, ä – isoenzymes. They were overlooked during the search for the genome, so intermediary metabolism took a back seat. But the work on protein conformation, and on the mechanism of action of enzymes and ligand and coenzyme was just out there, and became more important with the research on signaling pathways. The work on the mechanism of pyridine nucleotide isoenzymes preceded the work by Burton Sobel on the MB isoenzyme in heart. The Vietnam War cut into the funding, and it has actually declined linearly since.
A few years later, I was an Associate Professor at a new Medical School and I submitted a proposal that was reviewed by the Chairman of Pharmacology, who was a former Director of NSF. He thought it was good enough. I was a pathologist and it went to a Biochemistry Review Committee. It was approved, but not funded. The verdict was that I would not be able to carry out the studies needed, and they would have approached it differently. A thousand young investigators are out there now with similar letters. I was told that the Department Chairmen have to build up their faculty. It’s harder now than then. So I filed for and received 3 patents based on my work at the suggestion of my brother-in-law. When I took it to Boehringer-Mannheim, they were actually clueless.