Next Course: “CICICA Central American Course in Single-cell Cancer Analysis”, July 2025

The course lasts 5 days, during which wet and dry lab activities related to single-cell RNA-seq will be carried out. The first 2 days will emphasize the wet lab portion of single-cell RNA-seq, while days 3 through 5 will focus on bioinformatics analysis.
The course will accommodate a maximum of 15 students for the wet lab section and a maximum of 30 people for the dry lab section.
The course will be introduced on the first day, followed by an introductory session for the participants with a one-slide presentation.
The first day's activities will begin with processing a blood sample to isolate polymorphonuclear cells (PBMCs). Once isolated, the cells will be labeled and captured using the BD Rhapsody Express and BD Rhapsody Scanner platforms.
On the second day, amplification and purification procedures for mRNA and Sample Tag libraries will be carried out. Talks related to the applications of single-cell RNA-seq in oncology and other health sciences will be given in the morning and afternoon.
On the third day, we begin with the quality control of the genetic libraries and sequencing on the NextSeq 550 system. In the afternoon, we start with the bioinformatics analysis of the sequences obtained from the sequencer, covering fundamental aspects of the initial data exploration (e.g., reads and sequencing quality control).
On the fourth and fifth days, the bioinformatics part of the course will cover aspects of scRNA-seq data normalization and clustering, followed by differential expression analysis and cell type definition by exploring specific marker genes. Finally, we will finish the course covering other functional assays, such as biological processes, metabolic pathways enrichment, and cell-cell communication.

This course is a comprehensive study of the entire workflow of a single-cell RNA-seq experiment for a better understanding of the technology.
By carrying out each step of a single-cell RNA-seq experiment and analysis, the student will have a clearer conception of the implications, challenges, and advantages of using single-cell RNA-seq technology in their respective fields of study.
Additionally, this course emphasizes the value of public databases in single-cell RNA-seq as tools for conducting preliminary research on hypotheses. The results obtained from these analyses can provide scientific support for the chosen line of research.