Course Overview: Welcome to the genomic revolution in microbiology. This course is meticulously designed to bridge the gap between traditional microbiology and modern genomics. Whether you are a microbiologist investigating outbreaks or a researcher studying antibiotic resistance, this course provides the essential roadmap to understanding and analyzing Bacterial Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) data.

What You Will Learn: We have structured the curriculum into 3 distinct modules covering 9 comprehensive classes, taking you from raw sequencing reads to biological interpretation and publication-ready results.

Module 1: Fundamentals of Bacterial Genomics: Understand the "Language of DNA." This module breaks down how sequencing machines work, the differences between short-read and long-read technologies, and explains the complex file formats used to store massive biological datasets.

Module 2: Quality Control & Genome Assembly: Dive into the core data processing. Learn how to "clean" raw data to remove errors and how to use algorithmic tools to puzzle together millions of DNA fragments into a complete bacterial genome (Assembly).

Module 3: Annotation & Downstream Analysis: Turn data into biology. Learn how to identify specific genes, predict proteins, and detect critical markers like Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) and Virulence factors. You will also learn to compare different bacterial strains to understand their evolutionary relationships.

Who Should Attend:

• Undergraduate and Postgraduate students in Microbiology, Biotechnology, and Public Health.

• Clinical researchers working on infectious diseases and hospital epidemiology.

• Wet-lab scientists looking to transition into dry-lab (computational) analysis.

Outcome: By the end of this course, you will have a solid theoretical understanding of the NGS workflow, the ability to assess the quality of genomic data, and the practical know-how to assemble bacterial genomes and identify drug-resistant genes.