BIOL 419 - Introduction to Bioinformatics

Credits: (3)

Instructional Method: Three hours lecture.
Prerequisites: A grade of “C” or better in BIOL 131, BIOL 132, BIOL 231, and BIOL 232; or a grade of “C” or better in BIOL 111, BIOL 112, and BIOL 222; or permission of the instructor.

This course will provide a broad introduction to bioinformatics. Bioinformatics is a field that lies at the interface of biology, statistics, and computer science. The purpose of Bioinformatics is to analyze very large datasets and interpret the results in a biological framework. It often relies on scripting (writing computer code), which is the implementation of algorithms in a chosen programming language. Topics will include: basic genetics, open-source biosequence databases and search tools, sequence alignment algorithms, introductory genomic and transcriptomic analysis, gene annotation, and basic coding skills.