The 10^th Microbiology Workshop entitled “Biochemical and Molecular Characterisation of Bacteria and Fungi Using Bioinformatic Tools” was held from the 18^th to 20^th of July 2017, organised by the Department of Microbiology, Faculty of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences, UPM. 29 participants attended the 3-day workshop, including one international participant from Indonesia, coming together to learn basic microbiological identification methods. A total of five lectures and twelve practicals were conducted. Techniques learned in this workshop included microscopic and biochemical analysis as well as molecular identification of bacteria and fungi using 16S ribosomal RNA and Internal Transcribed Spacer (ITS) sequences.  The participants included lecturers, research officers and lab assistants from universities, research institutes and private industries.  In conjunction with this workshop, a Laboratory Manual on Molecular Techniques for Identification of Bacteria and Fungi was also published by the Department of Microbiology. This manual is the second edition published by the department and includes standard protocols that have been routinely used by our academic staffs and researchers. This manual can be purchased for a minimal fee from the department for interested parties.

 

Manual content:

1. Microscopic analysis of bacteria and fungi

2. Extraction and quantification of genomic DNA

3. PCR and agarose gel electrophoresis

4. Purification of DNA

5. Editing chromatogram of DNA sequence using Chromas

6. BLAST similarity search and phylogenetic analysis using MEGA

7. Primer design

8. DNA sequence submission to Genbank

 

Prepared by:

 

Dr. Amalia Mohd Hashim

Department of Microbiology