第一天下午2点上课,我提前半小时到,嗯,位置竟然不多了,可能是上午下课后同学们就没走。下午的课程是匹兹堡大学的Jianhua Xing教授(简称Dr. Xing)的《Modeling of Molecular and Cellular Systems》,后五天每天下午都有,每天两节课。课程开始,Dr. Xing自我介绍96年北大毕业,刚开始是做物理化学,后来是分子化学,再后来是生物化学,现在是生物信息学(互联网的发展改变人生轨迹啊)。接着,Dr. Xing讲了六点做学术的general建议:
1. Have passion & curious;
2. Be systematic, organized & pay attention to details;
3. Avoid being trapped by details;
4. Work with experimentalists;
5. Have phsical insight respect data (you are NOT playing numbers);
6. Be persistent, skeptical & honest.
今天是第二天,下午是Dr. Xing授课,应我们想要他推荐入门Systems Biology的书籍,于是他推荐了Uri Alon的《Introduction to Systems Biology》和Rob Phillips等人的《Physical Biology of the Cell》,其中Uri Alon的书有点outdated,但是入门依旧是最佳选择。我看到他的视频在You Tube上也有很多。再就是Dr. Xing讲述了他的paper中运用到的数学公式推导,知道大意,但是不明白出了他的论文,这些推导是否有普适性,这个有待在明天他的课上做进一步探讨。上午是来自加州大学欧文分校的Maksim Plikus老师,英文讲授《Biology of Stem Cells and Applications in Medicine》,这个讲的就很基础了,没有太多数学,干细胞的东西我们高中理科都是必修,理解起来毫无压力,PPT也做的很容易理解,期待他后面有前沿性的东西。
本周上午,我们学习了来自加州大学欧文分校Qing Nie老师的《Spatial modeling of Stem Cells and Development Biology》,他的教学方式挺不错的,同样,paper就是讲义,很多相关的paper先发给学生阅读,第二天分小组讨论,同学们推选出擅长表达的小组分析:
1. What are the main biological questions studied in each paper?
2. What is the main modeling approach each paper used?
3. Which paper do you like more: A or B in terms of the modeling approach?
4. Why? (Assuming A is a better paper in your opinion).
5. List three strengths of A? What aspects can be improved?
6. What are the main reasons you don’t like B?
7. What are the weakness of the modeling approach in B? Can the flaws be fixed?
8. If you write the paper to address the same biological questions in either A or B, what modeling approach will you prefer to use?
本周下午,我们学习了来自埃默里大学Zhaohui Qin老师的《Statistical models for NGS data analysis》,额,他全程是用中文讲下来,同学们听课终于不那么懵逼了。。统计模型中他介绍了贝叶斯方法模型,分层模型和隐马尔科夫模型,之前我之前有参加全美数学建模的经验,因此也都接触过,用在生物学上倒也是头次接触。