From October 12 to 16, 2026, the Center for Research on Health in Latin America (CISEAL) facilities in Quito hosted the International Workshop on Transcriptomics for Biomedical Research. The initiative, spearheaded by CISEAL associate researcher Andrea Zambrano, Ph.D., aimed to strengthen the scientific and technical competencies of Ecuador’s academic community in functional genomics and high-throughput biological data analysis.
The training program was delivered by expert instructors from Brigham Young University (United States) and convened faculty and researchers from institutions across Ecuador, including Escuela Superior Politécnica del Litoral (ESPOL), Universidad Regional Amazónica Ikiam, and Yachay Tech. Throughout intensive sessions held daily from 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM, participants covered advanced RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) methodologies, spanning library preparation, sequencing principles, and bioinformatic pipelines for transcriptomic profiling.
During the scientific poster session, Diana Gutiérrez, M.Sc., research professor at the Faculty of Life Sciences (FLS-ESPOL), presented the research project titled:
“Statistical and Bioinformatic Methods for the Comparative Functional Analysis of Microbial Genes in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.”
Developed in cross-institutional partnership with the Escuela Superior Politécnica de Chimborazo (ESPOCH) under the leadership of Pablo Flores, Ph.D., the study delivers bioinformatic tools and statistical modeling approaches to characterize functional gut microbiome dynamics and their potential mechanistic links to autism spectrum disorder.
