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91405 - Metagenomics

Academic Year 2024/2025

                
                        Docente:
                        Marco Candela
                    
                        Credits:
                        6
                    
                        SSD:
                        CHIM/11
                    
                        Language:
                        Italian
                    
                        Teaching Mode:
                        Traditional lectures
                        
                            Campus:
                            Bologna
                        
                            Corso:
                            Second cycle degree programme (LM) in
                            Biodiversity and Evolution (cod. 5824)

                            Online Lessons
                        
                            Teaching resources on Virtuale
                        
                                    Course Timetable
                                
from Oct 02, 2024 to Jan 17, 2025

Learning outcomes

In the course we will explore tree main aspects in the metagenomic research, the technical aspects, the biological implications and the piratical experience. We will discuss how to conduct a metagenomic study, starting from the experimental design and sampling campaign, until the DNA extraction, libraries preparations and NGS sequencing. Approaches of bioinformatics and biostatistics will be also discussed. Following the technical aspects, we will discuss the application of metagenomics in the microbiome science, including the co-evolutionary trajectories between the human beings and their microbiomes and the deriving implications for evolutionary and personal medicine. Further, we will discuss pioneering applications of microbiome science in the “one health” context, were the planet microbiomes and microbiome diversity are central for the health of the planet and for the evolutionary history of its inhabitants. Finally, some piratical aspects will be faced, becoming familiar with metagenomics studies, from the study design to bioinformatics and biostatistics.

Course contents

Metagenomics in microbiome science,
Next generation sequencing
Bioinformatics and biostatistics in metagenomic studies
Ecology and dominant dynamics in microbial communities
Microbiota and “one health”, microbiome centrality as a life support system on our planet, interaction with climate change and pollution
The human microbiome, from co-evolutionary history to personalized medicine
The holobionts microbiome (animal and plants) from phenotypic plasticity to phylosymbiosis
Paleometagenomics, ancient microbiomes and evolutionary and co-evolutionary dynamics