From Swab to Server: Testing, Sequencing, and Sharing During a Pandemic

The course will close for enrolments shortly. Please join the course by 31 May 2024.

Duration: 3 weeks, 5 hours per week

Free Certificate of Achievement available on satisfactory completion

Start Date: The course is run ‘live’ for 3 weeks from the start date above (i.e. until 29 May). Once this period is over, you will be able to join and complete the course, but there will be no live monitoring of the forums.

Who is the course for?

This course is designed for diagnostic and healthcare professionals, as well as anyone involved in the testing and analysis of disease samples.

It will also be advantageous to researchers specialising in the fields of pandemics, diseases, and diagnostics.

Course start date
9 May 2022

What will you cover?

• Explore the journey from swabbing to processing data
• Discover how sample strategies can affect scientific research and results
• Delve into the ethics of data sharing on a pandemic scale
• Recognise the importance of data sharing and linkage in public health concerns

What will you achieve?
By the end of the course, you‘ll be able to…

• Outline the journey from sample collection, through PCR to sequencing and data linkage
• Compare the different sample types and how sampling strategy affects test performance
• Explain the importance of linking genomic data to clinical and epidemiological data sets to address public health and scientific questions
• Identify and explore ethical, legal and social implications of data use and sharing

Lead educators

Ana Filipe
I work at the MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research (CVR), where I oversee the viral genomics team. We provide expertise on high-throughput sequencing applied to viruses.

Leigh Jackson
I am a lecturer in Genomic Medicine at the University of Exeter where I work on genotyping chip accuracy and rare cancer variant penetrance as well as being Scientific Lead for COG-Train

Rogers Kamulegeya
Bsc Ed, Msc. ICM; Mak
An Educationist and Biomedical Researcher in human genetics and genomics, immunology, stem cell biology, and biobanking science.

Moses Luutu Nsubuga
BioMedical Scientist, interested in EvoDevo. My goal in life is to gain a better understanding of the human body.

Course developer

Liã Barbara Arruda
Liã has a background in molecular virology and global health, with significant experience in laboratory capacity development in low-and-middle-income countries (LMICs). She is an Education Developer working on the COG-Train project.

The Wellcome Connecting Science Courses and Conferences team are offering everyone who joins this course a free digital upgrade, so that you can experience the full benefits of studying online for free. This means that you get:

• Unlimited access to this course
• Includes any articles, videos, peer reviews and quizzes
• Tests to validate your learning
• A PDF Certificate of Achievement to prove your success when you’re eligible