Bioinformatics:Synopsis

From Shiu Lab

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Course number

BMB/M

When

Spring semester, Mon & Wed, 9-11am

Where

BPS 2245

What is bioinformatics

Approaches for organizing and analyzing biological data (see the NIH or Wikipedia definition). Essentially any kind of biological data, as long as they are large enough to make manual data curation and analysis very tedious.

Why is it important

The human genome project results in a ~3,000,000,000 letter book of life (genome). In this book of life, tens of thousands of gene products are produced and regulated creating an intricate web of interaction that makes us human. What are the identities of these genes? What do they do? How do they interact with one another? Sequencing projects and various "omics" tools and datasets fundamentally transformed how biological problems are approached. Instead of looking at one gene, one protein, or one molecule at a time, questions can now be addressed at the whole genome or systems level that promise to give new insights on the nature of living things. The major challenge in the genomics era is how to extract information from these enormous amounts of data. Bioinformatics allows us to meet this challenge.

Who is this course for

• Students interested in knowing:
  • how bioinformatic tools work
  • how to use them to answer biological questions
  • how to develop simple bioinformatic tools to analyze data.
• Bioinformatics is an interdisciplinary field so biologists and non-biologists are welcome.
• Undergraduate and graduate students are both welcome but note the requirements.