Welcome to Bioinformatics.
Bioinformatics brings together the fields of life science, computer science and statistics. Bioinformaticians are involved in the development of technologies for storing, extracting, organizing, analyzing, interpreting and utilizing biological information. With the ever increasing size of genome and other biological data sets, students are required to extend their knowledge of existing statistical methodologies to the analysis of huge amounts of data. Students of bioinformatics gain a better understanding of biological systems by creative application of statistics and computer analysis. Cross-disciplinary knowledge courses are essential to the development of this emerging discipline.Students will be introduced in an integrated approach to the cross-disciplinary field of Bioinformatics. This course provides both theoretical and practical experience in DNA and protein sequence analysis including the searching of DNA, protein and nucleic acid databases using homology-based and pattern-based search algorithms, as well as sequence comparisons and alignments and evolutionary analysis. Students will develop skills in interfacing with and retrieving information from sequence and genome databases. Methods of sequence alignments including dynamic programming and supporting statistical theory are introduced. Topics include collection of sequences, sequence alignment, prediction of RNA secondary structure, phylogenetic relationships, gene prediction and protein structure prediction.