Bioinformatics Workshop 2013: Difference between revisions
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Biomedical research is becoming a high-throughput science. As a result, information technology plays an increasingly important role in biomedical discovery. Bioinformatics is a new interdisciplinary field formed by the merging of molecular biology and computer science techniques.Today’s biology students must therefore not only learn to perform in ''vivo'' and in''vitro'', but also in silico research skills. Quantitative/computational biologists are expected to be in increasing demand in the 21st century. | Biomedical research is becoming a high-throughput science. As a result, information technology plays an increasingly important role in biomedical discovery. Bioinformatics is a new interdisciplinary field formed by the merging of molecular biology and computer science techniques.Today’s biology students must therefore not only learn to perform in ''vivo'' and in''vitro'', but also in silico research skills. Quantitative/computational biologists are expected to be in increasing demand in the 21st century. | ||
However, the technical barrier to enter the field and perform basic research projects in a bioinformatics lab is daunting for most undergraduate students. This is mainly due to the multidisciplinary nature of quantitative biology, which requires understandings and skills in chemistry, biology, computer programming, and statistics. The Hunter Summer Bioinformatics Workshop aims to introduce bioinformatics to motivated undergraduate and high school students by lowering the barrier and dispensing the usual pre-requisites in advanced biology/chemistry courses as well as entry-level programming/statistics courses. The Workshop does not assume prior programming experience. | |||
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Revision as of 18:31, 2 June 2013
Course Description
Background
Biomedical research is becoming a high-throughput science. As a result, information technology plays an increasingly important role in biomedical discovery. Bioinformatics is a new interdisciplinary field formed by the merging of molecular biology and computer science techniques.Today’s biology students must therefore not only learn to perform in vivo and invitro, but also in silico research skills. Quantitative/computational biologists are expected to be in increasing demand in the 21st century.
However, the technical barrier to enter the field and perform basic research projects in a bioinformatics lab is daunting for most undergraduate students. This is mainly due to the multidisciplinary nature of quantitative biology, which requires understandings and skills in chemistry, biology, computer programming, and statistics. The Hunter Summer Bioinformatics Workshop aims to introduce bioinformatics to motivated undergraduate and high school students by lowering the barrier and dispensing the usual pre-requisites in advanced biology/chemistry courses as well as entry-level programming/statistics courses. The Workshop does not assume prior programming experience.
Contents
This course will introduce both bioinformatics theories and practices. Topics include: database searching, sequence alignment, molecular phylogenetics, structure prediction, and microarray analysis. The course is held in a UNIX-based instructional lab specifically configured for bioinformatics applications. Each session consists of a first-half instruction on bioinformatics theories and a second-half session of hands-on exercises.
Learning Goals
Students are expected to be able to:
- Approach biological questions evolutionarily ("Tree-thinking")
- Evaluate and interpret computational results statistically ("Statistical-thinking")
- Formulate informatics questions quantitatively and precisely ("Abstraction")
- Design efficient procedures to solve problems ("Algorithm-thinking")
- Manipulate high-volume textual data using UNIX tools, Perl/BioPerl, R, and Relational Database ("Data Visualization")
Pre-requisites
This 3-credit course is designed for upper-level undergraduates and graduate students. Prior experiences in the UNIX Operating System and at least one programming language are required. Hunter pre-requisites are CSCI132 (Practical Unix and Perl Programming) and BIOL300 (Biochemistry) or BIOL302 (Molecular Genetics), or permission by the instructor.
Textbook
Krane & Raymer (2003). Fundamental Concepts of Bioinformatics. Pearson Education, Inc. (ISBN 0-8053-4633-3)
This book should be available in the Hunter Bookstore, as well as through several popular retailers and resellers online.