The main goal of the course is to provide the student with a basic knowledge of metagenomic studies aimed at identifying the impact of microorganism composition in human phenotypes as well as of the analytical methods commonly applied in metagenomic studies
The course will be divided into three parts. In the first part, general features of microbial taxonomy and genetics will be discussed with a particular interest on those characteristics that are used in metagenomics studies. Taxonomic and functional metagenomics approaches will also be analysed.
The second part will focus on current methodologies to produce and analyse meta-genomics data. Next Generation Techniques used to generate metagenomics data will be introduced and the statistical methods commonly utilized to analyse the data will be proposed to the students.
In the last part metagenomics data will be analysed in the context of human health