This workshop briefly introduces techniques, platforms, and methods used in bulk RNA-Seq experiments, followed by a software demonstration using the HSLS-licensed CLC Genomics Workbench.

Participants will learn how to:

• access the CLCbio Genomics Server hosted on the HTC Cluster by Pitt CRC
• import RNA-Seq FASTQ reads from a GEO dataset
• assess the quality of RNA-Seq data
• align reads to a reference genome
• estimate known gene and transcript expression
• perform differential expression analysis
• visualize data by generating PCA and heatmaps

Target Audience

Experimental biologists seeking to analyze bulk RNA-Seq data generated through experiments or retrieved from a repository such as GEO. The software covered in the workshop operates through a user-friendly, point-and-click graphical user interface, so neither programming experience nor familiarity with the command line interface is required.