Memorandum

To:	BioInformatics Interns
From:	Internship Coordinator
Subject:	Welcome & Overview of Internship

Welcome and congratulations on being an intern in the National Institutes of Health’s Bioinformatics Internship Program (BIP).   For this particular project, we will be working in collaboration with the World Health Organization.  You will be working on a small team that is preparing to be useful when called upon later in the event of an Avian Influenza outbreak.  Bioinformatics technicians or researchers are first responders of sorts - they have to take raw sequence data and determine the relationships of the circulating influenza with previously known influenzas. Your work will be critical.

The experience you have had in the previous tasks related to influenza will help you to understand and navigate through the Avian Flu data.  Having done these exercises ensures that you are at the level needed do the Avian Flu related assignments in the Bioinformatics Internship Program.

Your BIP Project Leader will introduce you to the Avian Flu task, giving you specific instructions as to how to prepare your findings.

Good luck and we are glad you are here!