Center for Algorithmic Biotechnology

Members of the Center for Algorithmic Biotechnology were honored with St. Petersburg University annual scientific and educational awards (see all winners in Russian). Deputy director of the Center Dr. Prof. Alla Lapidus took the first place in the category of “Educational and methodical work” (for the first SPbU Coursera online course “Introduction to Bioinformatics”). Research fellows Alexey Gurevich and Alla Mikheenko took the first place in the category of “Contribution to science of young researchers” (for their work on genome assembly evaluation toolkit QUAST).

Online course “Introduction to Bioinformatics: Metagenomics”, authored and led by Professor of St. Petersburg State University, Deputy Director of the Center for Algorithmic Biotechnology Alla L. Lapidus, is a winner of the 4th international competition EdCrunch Award 2018 in the nomination “For the ability to clearly explain the most abstract ideas” (http://edtek.pro/award/pobediteli-2018.php — in Russian). The course was created with the participation of Mikhail Rayko (Center for Algorithmic Biotechnology at St. Petersburg State University), Nikolai Vyahhi (Director of the Institute of Bioinformatics, St. Petersburg), Pavel Dobrynin and Ekaterina Chernyaeva (St. Petersburg State University).

According to experts, “like another St. Petersburg State University course on bioinformatics (“Introduction to Bioinformatics”), this course is excellent and very close to the gold standard. Educational information is presented in a simple, accessible form, but at the same time at a high scientific and methodological level.”

The course “Introduction to Bioinformatics: Metagenomics” is available on platforms Coursera, Stepik and “Open Education”. The course “Introduction to Bioinformatics” is available on the Coursera platform. More than 35 thousand students have already taken St. Petersburg State University bioinformatics courses.