Ph: 61 2 6125 2866, Fax: 61 2 6125 5573
 |
.
|
A new Master of Molecular Genetic Analysis at the Australian National University enroling now for 2011
 Gathering genetic data is becoming faster and easier, now we need new ways to analyse the data. Skills in molecular genetic analysis are crucial.
The new Master of Molecular Genetic Analysis builds on a series of highly successful national graduate workshops on population genetic analysis offered by the authors of GenAlEx over the past decade. It provides a unique blend of theoretical knowledge, laboratory skills, and computing techniques - arming students with the intellectual tools they will need to design, carry out and interpret molecular genetic analysis.
The one year long program is open to graduate students with a Bachelor of Science or equivalent with a major in the field of biological sciences with relevant experience or honours, and will be of particular interest to graduate students from Australasia and the nearby Asia and Pacific regions.
The program begins each year in February, with applications closing in December of the previous year.
For more information about the Master of Molecular Genetic Analysis program please see:
http://www.anu.edu.au/BoZo/discover.php |
GenAlEx News (Posted 22-Dec-09)
GenAlEx 6.3 is now available for downloading. This new version of GenAlEx provides an exciting new option for calculating Shannon's Diversity Indices for population genetics based on the paper by Sherwin et al (2006):
Sherwin WB, Jobot F, Rush R and Rossetto M (2006) Measurement of biological information with applications from genes to landscapes. Molecular Ecology, 15, 2857-2869.
Shannon's diversity index for information theory (Shannon 1948) has been widely employed in ecology but has been less widely used in population genetics. Sherwin et al. (2006) showed that Shannon's Indices offer some ideal statistical properties for measuring biological information across multiple scales from genes to landscapes. We are pleased to make this first Shannon module available to GenAlEx users in the hope that it will make Shannon Diversity analysis more accessible in population genetics. Furthermore, an expansion of the options for Shannon Diversity analysis is currently in progress for a future release of GenAlEx.
A number of bug fixes and other minor improvements including additional Stats menu options such as U-tests and G-tests are also provided in this release.
Coinciding with the release of GenAlEx 6.3, we are also pleased to make available a series of self-paced tutorials on population genetic analysis using GenAlEx. These tutorials are based on material we have prepared to support our various graduate workshops.
We would like to thank the many students who attended our graduate workshops in Canberra (Australia) and Copenhagen (Denmark) in 2009 for beta testing GenAlEx 6.3 and suggesting improvements to our tutorials. We also thank Bill Sherwin for working closely with us in the development of the new Shannon option.
Rod Peakall and Peter Smouse Dec 2009
GenAlEx News (Posted 26-2-09)
We are pleased to announce the following Graduate Student Workshops in Genetics to be held at the Australian National University in 2009.
**************************************
Genetic Analysis for Population Studies
July 10-17, 2009.
A course offered by Professor Rod Peakall (ANU) and Professor Peter Smouse (Rutgers University, USA)
This workshop covers a wide range of standard and new statistical procedures for the population analysis and is designed to ensure that students fully understand the procedures involved. For many of the analyses, students will learn to calculate the various statistics by hand, before attempting the self-paced, computer-based tutorial examples. Examples will be drawn from a wide range of organisms.
**************************************
Analytical Methods for Population Genetics
October 6 to 9, 2009.
A course offered by Dr David Gordon and Dr Celeste Linde (ANU).
The workshop will present the theoretical framework and concepts necessary to understand the processes shaping the genetic structure of microbial and eukaryote populations. Participants will be introduced to the basic analytical principles underlying a range of public domain software that are available for the analysis of population genetic data.
Note that past experience indicates that these workshops can fill very fast. For example, the Genetic Analysis workshop can fill in just a few days. Therefore, you are encouraged to register immediately.
GenAlEx 6.2
We are pleased to advise that GenAlEx 6.2 is now available. This version has been offered to provide users with access to new spatial genetic analysis procedures that have been developed and described in the following publications:
Smouse, P. E., Peakall, R., and Gonzales, E. (2008) A heterogeneity test for fine-scale genetic structure. Molecular Ecology 17, 3389-3400.
Beck, N., Peakall, R., and Heinsohn, R. (2008) Social constraint and an absence of sex-biased dispersal drive fine-scale genetic structure in white-winged choughs. Molecular Ecology 17, 4346-4358.
To access these journal articles please see: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/117989598/issueyear?year=2008
GenAlEx 6.2 also fixes a number of minor bugs and therefore will be the only version available from this web site.
Thank you for using GenAlEx.
Rod Peakall and Peter Smouse
GenAlEx News (Posted 26-2-08)
Please note that a minor update to GenAlEx 6.1 has been posted. This version (6.1004) fixes a bug that prevented GenAlEx 6.1 from loading on some Finnish, French, Polish and Swedish systems. If you have not encountered this problem with GenAlEx 6.1, then there is no need to upgrade. If all goes to plan, GenAlEx 6.2 will be released by mid year, 2008.
GenAlEx News (Posted 20-12-07)
GenAlEx 6.1 now available!
GenAlEx 6.1 is an essential upgrade that replaces GenAlEx 6. In addition to minor improvements in the interface and the usual bug fixes, GenAlEx 6.1 offers some exciting new features for both teachers and researchers. For teachers, some of the new features include: more step-by-step output options, more tools for data exploration, and new tools for teaching topics such as permutation and bootstrapping. For researchers, we have considerably expanded the Analysis of Molecular Variance options to include more detailed F -statistics analysis, additional analysis outputs by locus, additional specialized permute options, additional graphing options, and the output of Linearized F st. We have also added support for Binary Haploid data, expanded the range of TwoGener options and added Nei Unbiased Heterozygosity and Nei Unbiased Genetic Distance estimates for all types of data.
GenAlEx 6.1 is fully compatible with Excel 2007. This includes the ability to take advantage of the substantially increased number of columns from 256 pre-Excel 2007 to 16,384 columns in Excel 2007. This capability will be particularly welcomed by AFLP users, whose binary data sets frequently exceed more than 256 polymorphic loci. The extra columns per worksheet will also allow expanded capability for working with DNA sequences within GenAlEx. If you intend to use GenAlEx 6.1 in Excel 2007, be sure to read the additional information provided when you download GenAlEx.
GenAlEx 6.1 now provides direct export of data to more than 20 other genetic software packages or formats including: AFLP-SURV, Alleles in Space, Arlequin, Cervus, FAMD, Famoz, Fdist2, GDA, GeneClass, GenePop, GeneticStudio, Kingroup, MEGA, MSA, MsVAr, Nexus, Phylip. POLDISP, PopGene, SPAeDI, Structure and TFPGA packages. In addition, indirect export to other packages such as Fstat and BAPS is available via the GenePop export format.
Spanish Guide for GenAlEx 6
We are extremely pleased to announce the release of a GenAlEx 6 Users' Guide in Spanish. We hope that this guide will provide an invaluable aid to hundreds of Spanish-speaking teachers and researchers. We would like to take this opportunity to thank Angela Mina-Vargas who completed the translation, under the direction and guidance of Nicola Flanagan, the author of the English GenAlEx 6 guide. To access the guide please see: http://www.anu.edu.au/BoZo/GenAlEx/espanol/
Previous GenAlEx News (Posted 8-8-07)
We would like to take this opportunity to thank our many users for citing GenAlEx in their publications. Did you known that because of the high citation impact of GenAlEx 6, in July 2007, ISI featured our paper: Peakall and Smouse (2006) as a Hot New Paper in the field of Environment/Ecology please see http://www.esi-topics.com/nhp/2007/july-07-Peakall_Smouse.html . We believe our paper is highly cited, because GenAlEx fills a void in the fields of molecular ecology and population genetics by bridging the gap between teaching and research.
Previous GenAlEx News (Posted 25-5-07)
It is now a year since the official release of GenAlEx 6 and it is therefore timely to bring you some important news. Since the release of GenAlEx 6, we have been overwhelmed by the enthusiastic response of both teachers and researchers. There are now more than 1000 GenAlEx users, representing more than 60 different countries. We also know that GenAlEx is used for undergraduate and graduate teaching in the following countries: Australia, Argentina, Canada, Finland, Germany, India, Iran, Israel, Italy, Mexico, Spain, The Netherlands, USA and Vietnam. This list is certain to be incomplete and if your country is not listed here, we would very much like to hear from you. Researchers from a great many countries are also finding GenAlEx 6 a helpful tool, with citations in the scientific literature growing fast and already exceeding 300.
