Training courses: Tutorial on Single-Cell Data Analysis

Course Description

The course introduces the statistical foundations of single-cell data analysis, providing a general framework for understanding the main characteristics of single-cell datasets and the methodological challenges they pose. As such, it is also suitable for participants approaching this type of data analysis for the first time.

Important Dates

• Tutorial date: 1 September 2026

Venue

Sapienza University of Rome
Piazzale Aldo Moro 5, 00185 Rome, Italy

Fee

No registration fee is required. Registration for the tutorial is separate from registration for the CIBB 2026 main conference.

Selection procedure

Seats are limited. Submission of the expression-of-interest form does not guarantee admission, but applicants on the waitlist will be contacted when registration opens and practical instructions become available.

Instructors

• Andrea Sottosanti, Department of Statistical Sciences, University of Padova, Italy
• Dario Righelli, Department of Biology, University of Padova, Italy

Organizers

• young-SIS, the young group of the Italian Statistical Society
• CIBB 2026

Contacts

For conference-related queries, please contact: cibb2026@uniroma1.it

Target Audience

• PhD students
• Master’s Students
• Post-Doc research scientists

Learning Outcomes

By the end of the tutorial, participants will be able to:

• Understand the main statistical challenges of single-cell data, including sparsity, high dimensionality, and technical variability
• Apply standard normalization and dimensionality reduction techniques to real datasets
• Perform clustering and cell type identification using both supervised and unsupervised methods
• Run differential expression analysis while appropriately controlling the type I error
• Conduct a complete analytical workflow in R using the Bioconductor SingleCellExperiment framework

Resources and tools covered

• R
• Bioconductor
• SingleCellExperiment
• GLM-PCA
• t-SNE
• UMAP
• SingleR
• Count Splitting

Prerequisites

Familiarity with R and basic statistical concepts is recommended. Participants must bring their own laptop. The list of required R packages and libraries will be provided before the tutorial.

Registration form

Register Here

Programme