Training & capacity building

Workshops

Intensive, hands-on short courses in specific laboratory and analytical techniques.

Format

One technique, learned properly

Workshops are deliberately narrow. Each concentrates on a single technique or closely related group of techniques, and runs long enough for every participant to perform the procedure themselves — more than once, with their technique corrected between attempts.

Group sizes are kept small for that reason. A workshop where twenty people watch one demonstration is a lecture with equipment present. Participants leave with a written protocol they have personally executed, and with a clear sense of where the method tends to fail.

Typical topics

The kinds of workshop we run

Subject areas drawn from the Center's research and service work.

Molecular techniques

Nucleic acid extraction, amplification and detection methods, including the practical failure modes of each.

Sample preparation

Collection, stabilisation, storage and processing — where a surprising share of unreliable results originate.

Assay validation

Establishing sensitivity, specificity and reproducibility, and interpreting validation data honestly.

Quality control

Designing and running controls, reading control charts, and knowing when to reject a run.

Data analysis

Handling and analysing laboratory data, with attention to the errors that most often mislead.

Laboratory safety

Containment, handling, decontamination and waste procedures for biological material.

Upcoming workshops will be listed here

Scheduled workshops, with dates, topics, prerequisites, group size and any fees, will appear here and on our News & Events page as they are confirmed.

Workshops for your institution

We can deliver workshops for university departments, hospital laboratories and research groups, adapted to the equipment and techniques you use.

Request a workshop