Following the success of the 2022 Training Program, Intersect and NCI commenced the 2023 Training Program in February. To date, we have delivered three hands-on training courses on programming languages; all of which have been well received by the attendees. We continue to meet the training attendees regularly to hear their feedback on the training program. Last month, we talked with Dr Yanran Zhao, a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Kirby Institute of the University of New South Wales. 

Yanran is leading the cellular and molecular immunovirology research projects which focus on investigating human CD8 T cell response against RNA viruses including hepatitis C and SARS-CoV-2. In order to process the single-cell RNAseq data with bioinformatic analysis, Yanran first attended our introductory R and Python courses, and then followed the common learning pathway of attending the Unix and High-Performance Computing courses. 

“Unlike other free training online, Intersect/NCI courses are well-organised and the training material, in particular, is developed at a level that accommodates researchers from different research domains and disciplines. I found the courses easy to follow and studying with other students at the same time is a fantastic experience.”

It is very encouraging to hear that as a result of attending our training program, Yanran now have a deeper understanding and there can collaborate with researchers from other research groups, who have a computer science background. Yanran also pointed out that the knowledge she acquired has supported her research workflow - she can now run and edit the analysis pipeline (developed by a bioinformatician who has subsequently left the group) on her data,  and more importantly, modified this current pipeline to accommodate a different data set analysis, taking advantage of NCI HPC resources. 

“Online learning videos, like LinkedIn, are highly accessible but when you are actually watching and following the steps, it can be annoying when things like software environment issues happen. In Intersect/NCI courses, it’s always helpful that the instructors can solve these problems on the spot.”

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Dr. Pauline O'Shaughnessy

Intersect and NCI continue to meet attendees of our digital research training program partnership and seek their feedback. In October, we spoke with Dr Pauline O'Shaughnessy about her learning stories from participating in the NCI/Intersect Training Program. Pauline is a lecturer in Statistics in the School of Mathematics and Applied Statistics at the University of Wollongong. Her research focus is on Data Privacy protection using statistical methods. 

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