Ancient DNA Analysis (ADNA01) – Live Online Course
Dates: 26–30 October 2026
Duration: 5 days, 25 hours
Instructor: Dr Nikolay Oskolkov
Format: Live online, with recordings available
Registration fee: £400
PR Stats is pleased to announce a practical course on the computational analysis of ancient DNA, covering bioinformatics workflows, ancient DNA authentication, metagenomics and population genomic analysis.
Ancient DNA provides powerful insights into evolutionary history, population dynamics, migration, domestication and gene flow. However, degraded DNA, low sequencing coverage and contamination present significant challenges for genomic analysis.
This workshop provides hands-on training in processing ancient genomic datasets, from raw sequencing reads through quality control and authentication to population structure, ancestry inference and evolutionary interpretation.
Topics covered include:
- Quality control, adapter trimming and read processing using fastp
- Alignment of ancient DNA sequencing reads using BWA and Bowtie2
- Taxonomic profiling of ancient metagenomic datasets using Kraken and sourmash
- Contamination assessment and ancient DNA authentication
- DNA damage analysis using mapDamage and PMDtools
- Probabilistic variant calling using ANGSD
- Population structure analysis using PCA, t-SNE and UMAP
- Ancestry inference using ADMIXTURE and STRUCTURE
- F-statistics (F2, F3 and F4) and D-statistics for investigating admixture and gene flow
- Building complete ancient DNA analysis workflows
Who should attend?
Bioinformaticians, evolutionary biologists, population geneticists, archaeogeneticists, microbiologists, postgraduate students and researchers working with ancient genomic or metagenomic datasets.
The course combines theoretical instruction with practical exercises using real-world datasets.
Course format:
- Live, instructor-led online training
- Hands-on computational exercises
- All sessions recorded, with 30 days of access
- Course materials and datasets provided
- 30 days of post-course instructor email support
Full course details and registration:
Please feel free to share this announcement with colleagues, laboratories, research groups, institutions and wider genomics and bioinformatics networks.