Influenza bioanalytics e-learning course

The course is designed as an unmoderated, self-paced course, i.e. participants can set their own schedule. The different sections of the course are intended to be taken sequentially, but the course does not need to be completed all at once.


Duration: 2 to 3 hours.


Audience: Public health professionals, laboratory scientists, epidemiologists working on influenza surveillance.


Objectives: This course aims to enhance knowledge of the basic bioinformatics tools available for the analysis of sequencing data and of the interpretation, comparison and analysis of influenza sequence data, with a focus on haemagglutinin and neuraminidase genes. Upon completion of the course, the participant will be able to: 

  • Understand Sanger and Next Generation Sequencing data analysis pipelines for HA and NA gene sequences; 
  • Retrieve sequences from public databases (GISAID and Genbank);
  • Understand HA and NA gene sequence alignments, mutations and SNP analysis for resistance (BioEdit); 
  • Use phylogeny software: basic concepts and instructions for phylogenetic analysis (MEGA); 
  • Visualise and annotate phylogenetic trees.


Participation: This course is open for public enrolment.


Introduction