Extended Microbiology Laboratory Skills

Course title: Extended Laboratory Skills in Microbiology

Duration: Five days, 0900-1700

Dates: April and August. One-to-one tuition is also available.

Location: University of Oxford/Oxford Brookes University Teaching Labs

Open to: UK and international students

Cost: £1950 (student) | £2780 (academic) | £4150 (industry)

Book a place (you will be taken to the LibPubMedia Ltd website for booking)

Introduction: This 5-day premium laboratory training course is aimed at providing students with in-depth theoretical and practical skills for working in a microbiology laboratory, giving them the confidence to work safely in a laboratory. This course will include several components of our 1- and 2-day courses in microbiology, molecular biology and bioinformatics. In addition to gaining theoretical background, the students will have the opportunity to use and familiarise themselves with several essential laboratory equipment.

This course will be held in a Class-1 safety laboratory and will not involve the use of pathogenic bacteria.

Provisional course topics:

• Laboratory safety gear
• Biosafety and green laboratory practices
• Maintaining laboratory records
• Research Data Management (RDM)
• Weighing and measuring
• Correct usage of pipetting/micropipetting tools
• Preparing stock and working solutions
• Media preparation
• Aseptic technique and working in a laminar flow hood
• Growing bacteria and growth curve
• Effect of antibiotics on bacterial growth
• Serial dilutions and viable count
• Plating and isolating bacteria
• Gram-staining
• Microscopy
• DNA cloning and bacterial transformation
• Selection of clones
• Plasmid DNA preparation
• Restriction endonuclease digestion
• Agarose gel electrophoresis
• Testing antimicrobial resistance
• Data interpretation
• Oral and poster presentation skills and student presentations
• Career advice

How will this course be taught?

Each day will include two brief refreshment breaks and a lunch break, and will be split approximately 20:80 between taught and practical content, respectively. The course will be headed by a course director, who will be assisted by graduate/postdoctoral junior tutors, actively involved in research and teaching at the University of Oxford, Oxford hospitals and Oxford Brookes University. We aim to have one tutor for every 5-6 students to provide individual attention and guidance.

Certificate: All students will receive a certificate of attendance, and a transcript detailing the topics covered in theoretical and lab sessions.

Letter of Reference: We will also be happy to provide students a letter of reference, on request.

Who should attend this course?

• A-level students and prospective undergraduates
• Bioinformatics students/researchers
• Students doing a distance learning/Open University degree
• Medical students
• Doctors intending to work in a lab
• Undergraduates/graduates looking for a laboratory position or starting an honours project
• Students planning to pursue a career in medicine or a biomedical discipline
• Industry sales/marketing representatives, managers and administrators interested in understanding how a laboratory works

Requirements

• English proficiency equivalent to IELTS level 5.5 (modest-competent user) or above (IELTS test certificate/score is not required)

Highly-recommended

• We recommend that you have studied or are studying biology/human biology/chemistry at high school level. However, we can also tailor this course for those without a biology/chemistry background.