2024 URP Python Course

The purpose of this course is to provide students with an introduction to the Python programming language in the context of biological data analysis. Python is a general-purpose programming language that is widely used around the world for scientific programming, web development, and software development. In the first three lectures we will cover the basics of working in Python. Then we will move into the specific aspects of Python relevant to biology and data science. The material is intended to be approachable for beginners, but we expect experienced programmers to benefit as well, especially starting in Lecture 4.

In this course we will be using Jupyter notebooks. These notebooks will have a mix of lecture materials and interactive exercises. You do not need to install any software for these to work. However, as we will be running these notebooks in Google Colab (https://colab.research.google.com), you will need a Google account to run the code. If you don't have a Google account, please create one. And you will, of course, need to bring your computer to each lecture.

Lead instructor:

• Justin B. Kinney ([email protected], http://kinneylab.labsites.cshl.edu/)

Graduate student instructors:

• Jakub Kaczmarzyk ([email protected])
• Xingyu (CiCi) Zheng ([email protected])
• Kaeli Rizzo ([email protected])
• Michael Passalacqua ([email protected])

Schedule

Classes are 120 min each. Days of the week, times, and locations may vary.

1. Introduction, Command Line, and GitHub. (Justin, Jakub) Wed June 12, 3pm-5pm in Hawkins Conference Room (3514)
2. Data Types and Flow Control I. (Justin) Fri June 14, 3pm-5pm in Hawkins Conference Room (3514)
3. Data Types and Flow Control II. (CiCi) Tues June 18, 3pm-5pm in Hawkins Conference Room (3514)
4. Datasets and Visualization I. (Kaeli) Wed June 26, 3pm-5pm in Hawkins Conference Room (3514)
5. Datasets and Visualization II. (Kaeli) Fri June 28, 3pm-5pm in Hawkins Conference Room (3514)
6. Genomic Data Analysis. (Michael) Tues June 2, 3pm-5pm in Hawkins Conference Room (3514)
7. Image Data Analysis. (Jakub) Wed July 10, 3pm-5pm in Hawkins Conference Room (3514)
8. Neural Data Analysis. (CiCi) Fri July 12, 3pm-5pm in Hawkins Conference Room (3514)