Kano Independent Research Center Trust (KIRCT) is thrilled to announce a groundbreaking collaboration with the esteemed Ensembl Team, European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), UK, bringing world-class genomics training to Africa!

KIRCT is proud to host a series of high-impact genomics and bioinformatics workshops, in collaboration with the Ensembl Team, European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), UK.
These workshops will provide researchers, bioinformaticians, and scientists with cutting-edge knowledge and hands-on experience in genomic data analysis, variant interpretation, and bioinformatics tools.
Upcoming Workshops:
🔹 Ensembl Genome Browser Workshop – April 7, 2025| 10:00 – 16:00 (WAT)

Ensembl provides an interface and an infrastructure for accessing genomic information, including genes, variants, comparative genomics and gene regulation data, covering over 300 vertebrate species. Its sister project, Ensembl Genomes, consists of five sub-portals (bacteria, fungi, protists, plants, and invertebrate metazoa) which contain data for over 2,000 eukaryotic (including wheat, barley, tomato and brassicas) and over 30,000 prokaryotic genomes.

Workshop Description

This full-day workshop will provide participants with the opportunity to learn about the wide range of data available through Ensembl and gain hands-on experience in navigating the Ensembl website to retrieve and interpret data. The workshop consists of a series of modules which include a presentation and a demonstration of the tools, followed by the opportunity to do exercises. Participants are encouraged to bring problems/questions about their research, and we will try to tackle these during the workshop using Ensembl.

Target Audience

This is an introductory workshop that is aimed at wet-lab scientists and bioinformaticians who are new to using Ensembl or have not yet discovered the power and depth of this resource. For the interactive aspects of this workshop, participants are encouraged to bring their personal laptops.

Ensembl Outreach

The Ensembl Outreach team and Ensembl are part of the European Bioinformatics Institute

(EMBL-EBI), who provide open-access bioinformatics resources and training to researchers around the globe. The workshop will be delivered by Jorge Batista da Rocha, who completed his PhD in Bioinformatics and Human Genetics at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa.

Learning Objectives

Access the main data types through the Ensembl web browser platform: genomes, genes, genetic variation, regulatory features and comparative genomics.

View genomic regions and manipulate the view to add features.

Explore information about genes and their sequences.

Analyse genomic variants and associated phenotypes and your own variation data using the Variant Effect Predictor (VEP).

View homologous genes and genomic regions.

View functional elements involved in gene regulation and their activity in different cell types.

Export gene data in bulk using BioMart.

🔹 Ensembl REST API Workshop – April 9, 2025| 10:00 – 15:00 (WAT)

Ensembl provides an interface and an infrastructure for accessing genomic information, including genes, variants, comparative genomics and gene regulation data, covering over 300 vertebrate species. Its sister project, Ensembl Genomes, consists of five sub-portals (bacteria, fungi, protists, plants, and invertebrate metazoa) which contain data for over 2,000 eukaryotic (including wheat, barley, tomato and brassicas) and over 30,000 prokaryotic genomes.

Workshop Description

The Ensembl REST API allows language agnostic programmatic access to Ensembl data. This full-day workshop offers an introduction the Ensembl REST API and its documentation, and how to access the different types of data. The workshop consists of a series of modules which include a presentation and description of how to access the different types of data, followed by practical element, where participants have the opportunity to retrieve Ensembl data via the REST API programmatically. Participants will have access to a Jupyter notebook, which is accessible via an internet browser. Please note that this is not an introductory course to programming and those attending the workshop must be familiar with either Python or R.

Target Audience

This is workshop is aimed at wet-lab scientists and bioinformaticians who would like to explore retrieving Ensembl data via the REST API and/or integrate Ensembl data into their own pipelines.

For the interactive aspects of this workshop, participants are encouraged to bring their personal laptops. Participants should have attended the Ensembl Genome browser workshop, and coding knowledge in either Python or R is a prerequisite.

Ensembl Outreach

The Ensembl Outreach team and Ensembl are part of the European Bioinformatics Institute

(EMBL-EBI), who provide open-access bioinformatics resources and training to researchers around the globe. The workshop will be delivered by Jorge Batista da Rocha, who completed his PhD in Bioinformatics and Human Genetics at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa.

Learning Objectives

Programmatically access main data types in Ensembl: genomes, genes, genetic variation, regulatory features and comparative genomics.

Describe the data types accessible through the Ensembl REST API .

Describe the methods in the Ensembl REST API.

Navigate the Ensembl REST API documentation to find available methods.

Write scripts to access data via the Ensembl REST API.

🔹 Ensembl Train the Trainer Workshop – April 16, 2025 | 10:00 – 15:00 (WAT)

Ensembl provides an interface and an infrastructure for accessing genomic information, including genes, variants, comparative genomics and gene regulation data, covering over 300 vertebrate species. Its sister project, Ensembl Genomes, consists of five sub-portals (bacteria, fungi, protists, plants, and invertebrate metazoa) which contain data for over 2,000 eukaryotic (including wheat, barley, tomato and brassicas) and over 30,000 prokaryotic genomes.

Workshop Description

Participants will learn about the general principles of training, along with the specifics of how Ensembl prepare their training courses. The course includes a practical element where participants can practice delivering training and receive feedback on their training style.

Target Audience

This Train the Trainer workshop enables individuals to deliver their own Ensembl browser workshops. These are especially beneficial for hosts in low-middle income countries and empowers trainers at institutes around the world to teach their own Ensembl training courses, allowing the knowledge and skills they learn to be passed onto future generations of scientists.

Ensembl Outreach

The Ensembl Outreach team and Ensembl are part of the European Bioinformatics Institute

(EMBL-EBI), who provide open-access bioinformatics resources and training to researchers around the globe. The workshop will be delivered by Jorge Batista da Rocha, who completed his PhD in Bioinformatics and Human Genetics at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa.

Learning Objectives

Describe what makes good/bad training and the skills needed by a trainer.

Design a training session with appropriate learning objective.

Appreciate your own learning style, how it may differ to others and how you can deliver training appropriate to different learning styles.

Use existing Ensembl training materials to create your own training materials.

Deliver a short training course on using an aspect of Ensembl.