Single-cell RNAseq analysis with R/Bioconductor

Welcome

This is the landing page for the “Single-cell RNA-seq analysis with R/Bioconductor” workshop, ed. 2024.

Authors: Jacques Serizay [aut, cre], Orr Ashenberg [aut, cre], Fabricio Almeida-Silva [aut, cre]
Version: 1.0.0
Modified: 2024-10-29
Compiled: 2024-11-03
Environment: R version 4.4.1 (2024-06-14), Bioconductor 3.19
License: MIT + file LICENSE
Copyright: J. Serizay, O. Ashenberg & F. Almeida-Silva

Program

Day Time Session Instructor
Day 1 14:00 - 15:00 Lecture 1: Introduction to scRNAseq analysis Jacques
15:10 - 16:10 Lecture 2: From sequencing reads to expression matrices Jacques
16:10 - 17:10 Break
17:10 - 18:30 Lab 1: Familiarizing with AWS instance Jacques
18:40 - 20:00 Lab 2: From .bcl to count matrix Fabricio
Day 2 14:00 - 14:50 Flash talks
15:00 - 16:00 Lecture 3: Quality control for scRNAseq data Jacques
16:00 - 17:00 Break
17:00 - 18:25 Lab 3: Introduction to R/Bioconductor Fabricio
18:35 - 20:00 Lab 4: scRNAseq data wrangling Fabricio
Day 3 14:00 - 15:30 Lecture 4: Identifying cell populations Jacques
15:40 - 17:00 Lab 5: Dimension reduction, clustering, and annotations Jacques
17:00 - 18:00 Break
18:00 - 19:00 Lecture 5: Data integration and batch effect correction Orr or Jacques
19:10 - 20:00 Lab 6: Batch correction Orr
Day 4 14:00 - 15:00 Lecture 6: Advances in single-cell genomics - The epigenome Orr
15:10 - 16:20 Lab 7: scATACseq analysis workflow Orr
16:20 - 17:20 Break
17:20 - 18:20 Lecture 7: Trajectories and pseudotimes Orr
18:30 - 20:00 Lab 8: Pseudotime analyses Fabricio
Day 5 14:00 - 15:00 Lecture 8: Advances in single-cell genomics - Spatial transcriptomics Orr
15:10 - 16:20 Group Project: Project work Jacques
17:20 - 19:00 Group Project: Project work Jacques
19:00 - 20:00 Wrap-Up: Finalize Projects and Discussion

More details about the program can be found here. All the times are in Berlin time (CET).

What

This course will introduce biologists and bioinformaticians to the field of single-cell RNA sequencing. We will cover a range of software and analysis workflows that extend over the spectrum from the best practices in the filtering scRNA-seq data
to the downstream analysis of cell clusters and temporal ordering. This course will help the attendees gain accurate insights in pre-processing, analysis and interpretation of scRNA-seq data.

We will start by introducing general concepts about single-cell RNA-sequencing. From there, we will then continue to describe the main analysis steps to go from raw sequencing data to processed and usable data. We will present classical analysis workflows, their output and the possible paths to investigate downstream of this.

Throughout the workshop, bash tools and R/Bioconductor packages will be used to analyse datasets and learn new approaches.

When

From November 4 to November 8, 2025.

Where

This course will be held online.

How

The course is structured in modules over five days. Each day will include formal lectures covering the key concepts required to understand scRNA-seq analysis. The remainder of each day will consist in practical hands-on sessions focusing on analysis of scRNA-seq data. These sessions will involve a combination of both mirroring exercises with the instructor to demonstrate a skill, as well as applying these skills on your own to complete individual exercises.
During and after each exercise, interpretation of results will be discussed as a group.

Who

The course will be mostly beneficial to those who have, or will shortly have, scRNA-seq data ready to analyse.

The material is suitable both for experimentalists who want to learn more about data-analysis as well as computational biologists who want to learn about scRNA-seq methods.

Examples demonstrated in this course can be applied to any experimental protocol or biological system.

The requirements for this course are:

  1. Working knowledge of Unix / command line interface (managing files, running programs, reading manuals!). Basic bash commands (cd, ls, ...) and CLI usage will not be covered in this course. We advice attendees to not register if they lack fundamental experience in CLI.
  2. Programming experience in R (writing a function, basic I/O operations, variable types, using packages). Bioconductor experience is a plus.
  3. Familiarity with next-generation sequencing data and its analyses (using alignment and quantification tools for bulk sequencing data)

Why

At the end of this course, you should be able to:

  • Understand the pros/cons of different single-cell RNA-seq methods
  • Process and QC of scRNA-seq data
  • Normalize scRNA-seq data
  • Correct for batch effects
  • Visualise the data and applying dimensionality reduction
  • Perform cell clustering and annotation
  • Perform differential gene expression analysis
  • Infer cell trajectory and pseudotime, and perform temporal differential expression

Throughout the course, we will also have a focus on reproducible research, documented content and interactive reports.

Instructors

Jacques Serizay

Orr Ashenberg

Fabrício Almeida-Silva