Integration of mobile sequencers in an academic classroom

The advent of mobile DNA sequencers has made it possible to generate DNA sequencing data outside of laboratories and genome centres. Here, we report our experience of using the MinION, a mobile sequencer, in a 13-week academic course for undergraduate and graduate students. The course consisted of theoretical sessions that presented fundamental topics of genomics and several applied hackathon sessions. In these hackathons, the students used MinION sequencers to generate and analyze their own data and gain hands-on experience of the topics discussed in the theoretical classes. The manuscript describes the structure of our class, the educational material, and the lessons we learned in the process. We hope that the knowledge and material presented here will provide the community with useful tools to help educate future generations of genome scientists.

Further reading

Citizen Sequencers: Taking Oxford Nanopore’s MinION to the Classroom and Beyond, Bio IT World.

Using the MinION in an educational setting: a survey

Columbia University Team uses MinION to Bring DNA Sequencing to Classroom: GenomeWeb ($)

The future of DNA sequencing is already in the classroom