United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Natural Science Foundation (NSF) funded program Partners Enhance Scientific Research (PEER). Projects are selected according to the criteria of scientific contributions, have an impact on development in the country and create prospects for strong cooperation between scientists in the developing world with US scientists.

Nha Trang University is currently implementing two projects PEER "Conservation Genetics to improved the biodiversity and resource management in the changing Mekong Delta"; and "Building genetic biodiversity research networks in the Mekong River."

The research project on the structure and connectivity of populations of fish species with different life cycles, and represents the ecosystem zones (upstream, estuaries and coastal areas) at Mekong basin, which allows assessment of the effects of changing environmental conditions in the Mekong region by changing hydrological conditions since the formation of the dam upstream, so change climate and because of the development of agriculture and industry. The project has the participation of partners from Vietnam (Nha Trang University, Can Tho University), Cambodia (Inland fisheries Research and Development Institute) and Laos (Living Aquatics Resources Research Center). This information can be used as input source for environmental management and resources, establish specific management areas and develop strategies for biodiversity conservation.

Currently, the modern genetic techniques, particularly the application of technology of next generation sequencing is widely used in advance genomic research, contribute to solving many of the problems in agriculture, medicine environment, as well as in the study of biodiversity and natural resource management. In the process of project implementation, Nha Trang University will organize training courses on next generation sequencing (NGS) with the aid of expertise and skills of laboratory professionals from Old Dominion University and University Texas A & M Corpus Christi, USA. Dr. Jonathan B. Puritz, Jr. and Sharon J. Furiness will participate in lan work instructor and teaching bioinformatics.

8 day training course will introduce practical data analysis short sequence from Illumina, next generation sequencing platform, and RAD technique. The first day to introduce the basic concepts of NGS, computational thinking and analyzing data on the UNIX platform. 2 days after will be the practicing Ezrad technique. Next 5 day focused on the sequence assemble, sequence data analysis, detect SNPs, and examined the population structure.

Attending the training were members of the project "Building a research network of genetic biodiversity of the Mekong River" at Nha Trang University (NTU), Can Tho University (CTU), Inland Fisheries Research and Development Institute, Cambodia and Living Aquatic Resources Research Center Laos, together practitioners, students at Nha Trang University and Research Institute for Aquaculture 3.