By: Ni Putu Dian Pertiwi & M. Danie Al Malik
Diponegoro Marine Biodiversity Project (DMBP), a research laboratorium led by Prof. Dr. Ir. Ambariyanto, M.Sc, collaborated with Magister & Doctorate of Science, Faculty of Fisheries & Marine Science, Diponegoro University (FPIK Undip), Yayasan Biodiversitas Indonesia (BIONESIA) and Smithsonian Institution, arranged a workshop and general lecture in July 2018. These activities were one of the programs on the project funded by USAID and Master of Science Program, FPIK Undip. The workshop entitled “Phylogenetic and Basic Molecular Analysis” was aim to train students, lecturer and researchers in Diponegoro University on how to analysis genetic data and infer the result of the analysis. This workshop was held for 2 days, starting from July 12th until July 13th, 2018. During this event, 33 students and lecturers were participated. Among these participants, most of them already have their personal research data to be used on the analysis, which were benefiting for them in the practice session on the workshop.
General lecture by Dr. Christopher Meyer
The workshop was divided into two major analysis methods, including phylogenetic analysis and population genetic. The participants were given basic knowledge of the analysis and then encourage doing the analysis on their own computer, which expected to given them the feel to do the real genetic analysis. The trainers in this workshop are BIONESIA’s staff (i.e. Andrianus Sembiring, Ni Putu Dian Pertiwi) and one of DMBP Staff (Eka Maya Kurniasih). Several students of Diponegoro University, who were also part of the DMBP teams, were also assisting the participants in the hands on practice lesson.
The participants practicing using R program with the instruction from Aji Wahyu Anggoro.
The second program on this activity was general lecture and advance bioinformatics lecture, which was held on July 18th until July 19th, 2018. Dr. Christopher Meyer, a researcher from Smithsonian Institution and Ni Kadek Dita Cahyani, a PhD candidate from University California Los Angeles (UCLA) were invited to give a lecture and share their experiences on performing research on marine genetic. During the second day of this activity, Dr. Christopher Meyer also share his knowledge on how to do genetic analysis on metabarcoding data of decapod collected throughout Indonesia in his project along with DMBP. Aji Wahyu Anggoro, another PhD candidate from University California Los Angeles (UCLA) was assisting Dr. Meyer in this class to train the participants on how to use the R program, which was one of the programs that can be used to display the result of the analysis.
These type of activities were hopefully can give the insight to the participants who interested in bioinformatics and help them to solve their data analysis issues. Through this type of event, it is also expected to increase the capacity of students and researchers in Diponegoro University in performing genetic research and analysis.