Once you’ve seen What we do, you might wonder how well we do it. Here is a selection of testimonials from academics we have collaborated with
As a clinical PGR with no prior experience of R, I attended the Bioinformatic intro to R course, the RSE Github course and have had a series of appointments at the RSE Code Clinic. The courses were pitched at the perfect level for absolute beginners like me and Code Clinic allowed me to refine my code, improving my understanding of the language and also benefitting from the experience of the RSE team. This service has been the most valuable service I have utilised during my PHD study and I would recommend it to everyone, especially those looking to learn new skills.
Dr. Robert Sandler, PhD Student, School of Health and Related Research (ScHARR)
way back in 2020 you ran a free intro to R course, which I attended.. and you created a bit of a monster! Since then I have done loads of online training on R and associated stats, a bit of Linux and a tonne of web development stuff (HTML, CSS, JavaScript). Prior to your course I honestly thought computing was not for me and I’d hate it, but dipping my toe in made it a whole lot less intimidating and I now code for fun 😱😁. I’ve even contributed some R analysis to a paper .
Dr. Sarah Boddy,ProSec3 Study Manager, Sheffield Institute for Translational Neuroscience (SITraN)
Since 2020 I’ve had the pleasure working with Dr Mark Dunning who has played a fundamental role in an assessment on the MSc Translational Oncology course. This has involved running a 2 week Bioinformatics course including preparing course material, setting assessment criteria, giving introductory lectures on Bioinformatics, demonstrating worked examples of how to take a set of RNA data, process it and assess its quality using online tools/platforms. At the end of the course Mark acts as one of the examiners for the student’s final assessment and always gives constructive feedback. Mark’s interaction with students has always been with a positive approach, he’s been exceptionally helpful and has shown patience if someone does not fully understand the processes involved. I would highly recommend working with Mark and other members of the team
Dr. Michelle Lawson, School Director of Postgraduate Research, School of Medicine and Population Health
The team have been really helpful to me during my PhD. I attended their introduction courses to RNA-sequencing and to visualisation in R which were my first interactions with them. The online course material formed the backbone of my ongoing learning and I revisited it multiple times as I continued to develop my skills. Mark and Emily have also been of particular help in debugging my code when I’ve been stuck. It’s been useful talking through my analysis plans with them both in-person and online during the pandemic. Mark has often managed to distill very complex concepts into simpler terms for me- he’s a good teacher.
Dr. Farah Shahi, Honorary Clinical Fellow, Division of Clinical Medicine
For me the Bioinformatics core team is the “go-to” place for all bioinformatics related issues, training, and essential for grant writing support.
Dr. Freek Van Eeden, Senior Lecturer, School of Biosciences
We have worked with Mark and Bioinformatics Core team for several years and continue to collaborate with them on several projects which involve the experimental design, implementation and data analysis of WES and bulk/scRNAseq data. Mark has also helped train several of our PhD students and PDRAs and has co-supervised some of our MSc and PhD students. Additionally, we have been developing novel protocols around single cell and single nuclei RNAseq applications from fresh tumour tissue, and Mark has helped analyse pilot data and liaise with the kit manufacturers and NGS service providers to help drive forward these projects.
Dr. Spencer Collis, Reader, Head of the Genome Stability Laboratory, School of Medicine and Population Health
The team led by Dr Mark J Dunning, at the University of Sheffield, have performed an invaluable service to our lab research in enabling us to investigate disease associations of novel biomarkers we have discovered within genomic databases. They have also greatly assisted in the statistical analysis of data. Dr Dunning and his staff are always friendly and open to collaboration and perform their analyses in a manner that is both prompt and highly professional
Steve
The Bioinformatics Core has been a fantastic resource that we regularly take advantage of for our research and training needs. We access a range of core training, which has been instrumental to allow my group to develop and refine their bioinformatics expertise and confidence. We also take advantage of their knowledge, both for implementing and speeding up routine pipelines and analyses for papers and grant proposals, and for more complicated tasks. For the latter, the Core work more as collaborators, providing detailed input into experimental design and analysis.
Dr. Dan Bose, Sir Henry Dale Fellow, School of Biosciences
Mark and Emily were very patient, they’ve not only helped with my issues on a number of occasions but have also ensured that I’ve understood how to fix the problem. I cant describe how helpful the clinic has been to my research!!! 5*
Invaluable service. I worked 2 days on correcting error codes for an rRNA filtering package to no avail. 30 minutes into a drop-in-clinic with Emily, we had solved the error together and I had learnt numerous essential bioinformatic tools along the way.
The issue I needed addressing was resolved. Nobody in my group had the expertise to do this. The clinic allowed me to be able to continue analysing my data.
Emily was incredibly patient and worked at an appropriate pace so that I was able to ask questions and develop some skills myself, very much appreciated.
For queries relating to collaborating with the Bioinformatics Core team on projects: bioinformatics-core@sheffield.ac.uk
Join our mailing list so as to be notified when we advertise talks and workshops by subscribing to this Google Group. You can also connect with us on Linkedin.
Requests for a Bioinformatics support clinic can be made via the Research Software Engineering (RSE) code clinic system. This is monitored by Bioinformatics Core staff, so we will ensure the appropriate expertise (which may involve individuals from multiple teams) will be available to help you
Queries regarding sequencing and library preparation provision at The University of Sheffield should be directed to the Multi-omics facility in SITraN or the Genomics Laboratory in Biosciences.
