Award: IOS-1238801

In 2012, we held the first EU US Training in Bioinformatics in Bremen, Germany. The course was co-administered by Drs. Frank Oliver Glockner and Jennifer Biddle. We had 30 students, 15 of whom were US students and professors, who met at Jacobs University in Bremen for 2 weeks of intense bioinformatics training. The focus of this training was the application of bioinformatics tools to marine data, and as such we focused on the combination of computational learning, biological understanding and metadata integration in our course. Typically, bioinformatics training may only teach a computational approach, but since our audience were primarily trained as marine scientists, we included the biological basis for things such as homology scoring, and also the evaluation of datasets to interpret ecological structure. Overall the course was a success, and has led to multiple publications. Students reported satisfaction with the course and still report that this course has enriched their academic careers. We continued with the format in the US for a 2013 course and this initial project directly impacted the second course format. We additionally connected the group, students and instructors, using social media, and have watched the cohort blossom into a professional network. Today the course facebook page is still a place for questions to be addressed and for jobs to be posted. The value of a cohort for a field where the methods change daily has been invaluable for long term progression and development. This underscores the importance of face to face instruction and networking in this discipline. Last Modified: 07/30/2014 Submitted by: Jennifer F Biddle