ITM Antwerp Call for Applications: Molecular Data for Infectious Diseases (Short Course)

The Department of Biomedical Sciences of the Institute of Tropical Medicine of Antwerp, Belgium (ITM) has the honour to inform you that: registration for the “Molecular Data for Infectious Diseases (MID)” short course is now open.

Despite rapid advances in molecular methods, their implementation in low-resource environments often remains cumbersome due to logistic, financial, and human resource constraints. MID focusses on the selection and analysis of appropriate assays and their implementation in a particular research setting:

• MID is a course for experienced molecular biologists.
• The main focus is to select and implement the proper molecular tools for a given project, and to collect good quality data.
• Such project is an epidemiological or clinical infectious disease study in a resource-limited setting.
• The molecular tools are DNA or RNA-based.
• Examples of topics are pathogen and vector detection and identification and their application in clinical and epidemiological studies.

Content:

MID is taught in English and it is organized in 2 stages:

1. Preparation stage (online only): This is essentially to refresh and test your molecular biology knowledge, and consists of 2 sections. You need to pass the preparation stage in order to be invited to the interactive stage.
   • Molecular methods: fragment-based methods, DNA sequencing, nucleic acid isolation, PCR
   • Software: MEGA, R, BLAST, Structure, spreadsheet, database
      
2. Interactive stage (face-to-face preferred or online if needed): This is the core of MID. You work in groups of 3-5 students on a joint project and work on:
   • developing a target product profile
   • assessing different methods
   • developing a project strategy
   • designing quality control
   • building data collection forms and databases
   • presenting your project to the ITM community

Learning Objectives:

• select the most appropriate molecular methods for detection or characterization of an etiological agent or vector, in order to answer specific questions in a clinical or epidemiological research context, and given the restrictions in terms of infrastructure, logistics, personnel, ethics, and budget.
• plan accurate molecular data collection and analysis in a resource-limited context.
• infer research conclusions given the limitations of the proposed methods and sample.
• present the selected methodology and implementation plan orally and in writing, with clear argumentation of relevance and feasibility.
• work actively in a team to design and present the implementation strategy.
• explain clinical and epidemiological study designs and concepts.

Important dates:

• Registration Deadline – September 4, 2022
• Starting date of the online preparation program – October 3, 2022
• Starting date of the interactive program (online or face to face) – March 6, 2023

Read more here.