Implementation Date: 2011
Note: Deletions are strikethroughs. Insertions are underlined.
Catalog Copy
Proposed Catalog Copy
BIOINFORMATICS
Department of Bioinformatics and Genomics
Bioinformatics Building, Room 309
704-687-8541
http://bioinformatics.uncc.edu/
Degrees
- Professional Science Masters in Bioinformatics
- Ph.D. in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology
Program Chair
Dr. Lawrence Mays
Program Directors
- Dr. Dennis Livesay (PhD program)
- Dr. Cynthia Gibas (PSM program)
Graduate Faculty
- Cory Brouwer, Associate Professor
- Xiuxia Du, Assistant Professor
- Anthony Fodor, Assistant Professor
- Cynthia Gibas, Associate Professor
- Jun-tao Guo, Assistant Professor
- Dennis Livesay, Associate Professor
- Ann Loraine, Associate Professor
- Lawrence Mays, Professor
- Jessica Schlueter, Assistant Professor
- Shannon Schlueter, Assistant Professor
- Susan Sell, Professor
- ZhengChang Su, Assistant Professor
- Jennifer Weller, Associate Professor
Adjunct Faculty
Marjorie Benbow
Ph.D. in BIOINFORMATICS and COMPUTATIONAL BIOLOGY
The Ph.D. in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology (BCB) is granted for planning, execution and defense of original research resulting in significant contributions to the discipline's body of knowledge. To that end, the BCB Ph.D. program also requires didactic coursework to prepare the student for research success. Student progress is primarily assessed by: (a) satisfactory coursework performance, (b) the Qualifying Examination, (c) the Dissertation Proposal and (d) the Dissertation Defense. Courses and the Qualifying Examination are used to ensure that the student has sufficient breadth of knowledge. The Dissertation Proposal is used to ensure that the scope of dissertation research is important, that the plan is well thought out and that the student has sufficient skills and thoughtfulness needed for success. The Dissertation Defense is used to assess the outcomes of the dissertation research, and whether or not the plan agreed upon by the Dissertation Committee has been appropriately adhered to.
Didactic Curriculum
In consultation with their Academic Advisor and/or Program Director, students must take an appropriate selection of the following Gateway Courses. For example, an incoming student with a Computer Science background would be expected to take 8100 and 8101, but not 8111 and 8112. All students must complete the Core Courses prior to taking the Qualifying Examination. Each Ph.D. student must complete two Research Rotations in the first year. Each Research Rotation provides a semester of faculty supervised research experience to supplement regular course offerings. Graduate Research Seminar is taken every semester until the semester following advancement to candidacy. Finally, many additional Elective Courses are available, but are not explicitly required.
Gateway Courses:
- BINF 8100 Biological Basis of Bioinformatics
- BINF 8101 Energy and Interaction in Biological Modeling
- BINF 8111 Bioinformatics Programming I
- BINF 8112 Bioinformatics Programming II
Core Courses:
- BINF 8200 Statistics for Bioinformatics
- BINF 8201 Molecular Sequence Analysis
- BINF 8202 Computational Structural Biology
Research Rotations:
- BINF 8911 Research Rotation I
- BINF 8912 Research Rotation II
Graduate Research Seminar:
- BINF 8600 Seminar
Qualifying Examination
Prior to defining a research topic, students are required to pass a Qualifying Examination to demonstrate proficiency in bioinformatics and computational biology, as well as competence in fundamentals common to the field. The Qualifying Examination must be passed prior to the fifth semester of residence. It is composed of both written and oral components that emphasize material covered in the Core Courses listed above.
Dissertation Proposal
Each student must present and defend a Ph.D. Dissertation Research Proposal after passing the Qualifying Examination and within ten semesters of entering the Program. The Dissertation Proposal will be conducted by the student's Dissertation Committee, and will be open to faculty and students. The proposal must address a significant, original and substantive piece of research. The proposal must include sufficient preliminary data and a timeline such that the Dissertation Committee can assess its feasibility.
Dissertation
Each student must complete a well-designed original research contribution, as agreed upon by the student and Dissertation Committee at the Dissertation Proposal. The Ph.D. Dissertation is a written document describing the research and its results, and their context in the sub-discipline. The Dissertation Defense is a public presentation of the findings of the research, with any novel methods that may have been developed to support the conclusions. The student must present the Dissertation and defend its findings publicly, and in a private session with the Dissertation Committee immediately thereafter.
PROFESSIONAL SCIENCE MASTER’S IN BIOINFORMATICS
Additional Admission Requirements
In addition to the general requirements for admission to the Graduate School, the following are required for admission to the Professional Science Master’s (PSM) in Bioinformatics:
Under most circumstances, students admitted to the program will have:
- A baccalaureate degree from an accredited college or university in Biology, Biochemistry, Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics, Statistics, Computer Science, or another related field that provides a sound background in life sciences, computing, or both.
- A minimum undergraduate GPA of 3.0 (4.0 scale) and 3.0 in the major.
- A minimum combined score of 1000 on the verbal and quantitative portions of the GRE, and acceptable scores on the analytical and discipline-specific sections of the GRE.
- A combined TOEFL score of 220 (computer-based), 557 (paper-based), or 83 (internet-based) is required if the previous degree was from a country where English is not the common language.
- Positive letters of recommendation.
Degree Requirements
The Professional Science Masters (PSM) in Bioinformatics degree requires a minimum of 37 graduate credit hours, and a minimum of 33 credit hours of formal course work. A minimum of 24 credit hours presented toward a PSM in Bioinformatics must be numbered 6000 or higher. A maximum of 6 hours of graduate credit may be transferred from other institutions.
1. Total hours required. The program requires 37 post baccalaureate credit hours. Because of the interdisciplinary nature of this program, which is designed to provide students with a common graduate experience during their professional preparation for the PSM in Bioinformatics degree, all students will be required to take a general curriculum that includes a two-year sequence of courses as described below:
2. Core Requirements.
a. Fundamentals Courses
The Fundamentals course sequences are intensive graduate-level courses designed to provide accelerated training in a second discipline that complements the student’s undergraduate training. Students entering the program are expected to have achieved proficiency in either Biological Sciences or
Computing, and to require at most two of the
Fundamentals courses.
Fundamental Biology track: This course sequence is designed for students entering with a degree in Computer Science or another quantitative science discipline. The Fundamental Biology course sequence provides accelerated training in Genetics, Cell and Molecular Biology, and Biochemistry. BINF 6100 (Biological Basis of Bioinformatics), 6101 (Energy and Interaction in Biological Modeling).
Fundamental Computing track: The Fundamental Computing track is designed for students entering with a degree in a life science discipline. The Fundamental Computing course sequence provides accelerated training in programming and data structures. BINF 6111, 6112 (Bioinformatics Programming I and II).
b. Core Bioinformatics Courses
Fundamentalscourses prepare students for the
required Core courses. All students must take BINF 6200, Statistics for Bioinformatics. In addition, students must take 6 additional credit hours of Core Genomics courses from among BINF 6201 (Molecular Sequence Analysis), BINF 6203 (Genomics), BINF 6205 (Computational Molecular Evolution) and BINF 6350 (Biotechnology and Genomics Laboratory) and 6 credit hours from the Core Computational courses from among 6202 (Computational Structural Biology), BINF 6204 (Mathematical Systems Biology), BINF 6210 (Numerical Methods and Machine Learning for Bioinformatics) and BINF 6310 (Advanced Statistics for Genomics).
c. Professional Preparation Requirement
Students are required to take at least 3 credit hours of electives designed to prepare them to function effectively and ethically in a professional environment. Some recommended electives in this category include BINF 5171, Business of Biotechnology, BINF 5191, Biotechnology and the Law, BINF 6151, Professional Communications, PHIL 6050, Research Ethics, and ITIS 6362, Information Technology Ethics, Policy, and Security. Additional elective choices that may fulfill this requirement can be identified by the student and the student’s Advisory Committee.
d. The remaining credit hours of formal course work can be completed in additional Core Bioinformatics courses and/or other recommended program electives.
The student’s Advisory Committee will review the student’s plan of study each semester.
Bioinformatics Electives: Any courses with BINF numbers, with the exception of Fundamentals courses, which require approval, are open to PSM students seeking to complete their coursework requirements.
Recommended Electives offered by other units: A wide range of courses in Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science, Software and Information Systems, and other departments may be appropriate electives for PSM in Bioinformatics students. As course offerings change frequently, the Bioinformatics Program maintains a list of current recommended electives, which can be found online at bioinformatics.uncc.edu.
e. Other requirements
• Bioinformatics Seminar. In addition to 33 hours
of formal coursework, students are required to enroll in the Bioinformatics Program seminar (BINF 6600) for at least one semester (1 credit hour) and to enroll in either an approved internal or external internship (BINF 6400) or a faculty-supervised original research project leading to a thesis (BINF 6900).
• Grades required. An accumulation of three C grades will result in suspension of the student's enrollment in the graduate program. If a student makes a grade of U in any course, enrollment in the program will be suspended.
• Amount of transfer credit accepted. A maximum of 6 credit hours of coursework from other institutions will count toward the PSM in Bioinformatics degree requirements. Only courses with grades of A or B from accredited institutions are eligible for transfer credit.
COURSES IN Bioinformatics
BINF 4171. Business of Biotechnology. (3) Prerequisite: Junior or senior status in a scientific/technical course of study or if in a non-biological/technical or scientific program, special permission of the instructor. This course introduces students to the field of biotechnology and how biotech businesses are created and managed. The students should be able to define biotechnology and understand the difference between a biotech company and a pharmaceutical company. Additional concepts covered will include platform technology, biotechnology’s history, biotechnology products and development processes, current technologies used by biotech companies today, biotechnology business fundamentals, research and development within biotech companies, exit strategies, and careers in the biotech field. (Spring)
BINF 4191. Biotechnology and the Law (3)
Prerequisite: Junior or senior status in a scientific/technical course of study or if in a non-biological/technical or scientific program, special permission of the instructor. At the intersection of biotechnology and the law, an intricate body of law is forming based on constitutional, case, regulatory and administrative law. This body of legal knowledge is interwoven with ethics, policy and public opinion. Because biotechnology impacts everything in our lives, the course will provide an overview of salient legal biotechnology topics, including but not limited to: intellectual property, innovation and approvals in agriculture, drug and diagnostic discovery, the use of human and animal subjects, criminal law and the courtroom, agriculture (from farm to fork), patient care, bioethics, and privacy. The body of law is quite complex and it is inundated with a deluge of acronyms. The course will provide a foundation to law and a resource to help students decipher laws and regulation when they are brought up in the workplace. (Fall)
BINF 5171. Business of Biotechnology. (3)
Prerequisite: Admission to a graduate program. This course introduces students to the field of biotechnology and how biotech businesses are created and managed. The students should be able to define biotechnology and understand the difference between a biotech company and a pharmaceutical company. Additional concepts covered will include platform technology, biotechnology’s history, biotechnology products and development processes, current technologies used by biotech companies today, biotechnology business fundamentals, research and development within biotech companies, exit strategies, and careers in the biotech field. (Spring)
BINF 5191. Biotechnology and the Law (3)
Prerequisite: Admission to a graduate program. At the intersection of biotechnology and the law, an intricate body of law is forming based on constitutional, case, regulatory and administrative law. This body of legal knowledge is interwoven with ethics, policy and public opinion. Because biotechnology impacts everything in our lives, the course will provide an overview of salient legal biotechnology topics, including but not limited to: intellectual property, innovation and approvals in agriculture, drug and diagnostic discovery, the use of human and animal subjects, criminal law and the courtroom, agriculture (from farm to fork), patient care, bioethics, and privacy. The body of law is quite complex and it is inundated with a deluge of acronyms. The course will provide a foundation to law and a resource to help students decipher laws and regulation when they are brought up in the workplace. (Fall)
BINF 6100. Biological Basis of Bioinformatics. (3)
Prerequisites: Admission to graduate standing in Bioinformatics and undergraduate training in Computer Science or other non-biological discipline. This course provides a foundation in molecular genetics and cell biology focusing on foundation topics for graduate training in bioinformatics and genomics. (Fall)
BINF 6101. Energy and Interaction in Biological Modeling. (3)
Prerequisites: Admission to graduate standing in Bioinformatics. This course covers: (i.) the major organic and inorganic chemical features of biological macromolecules; (ii.) the physical forces that shape biological molecules, assemblies and cells; (iii.) the chemical driving forces that govern living systems; (iv.) the molecular roles of biological macromolecules and common metabolites; (v.) and the pathways of energy generation and storage. Each section of the course builds upon the relevant principles in biology and chemistry to explain the most common mathematical and physical abstractions used in modeling in the relevant context. (Spring)
BINF 6111. Bioinformatics Programming I. (3)
Prerequisites: Admission to graduate standing in Bioinformatics. This course introduces fundamentals of programming for bioinformatics using a high-level object-oriented language such as python. The first weeks cover core data types, syntax, and functional programming, focusing on construction of programs from small, testable parts. Students will learn productive use of the Unix environment, focusing on Unix utilities that are particularly useful in bioinformatics. The course will cover object-oriented programming, introduce analysis of algorithms and sequence alignment methods, and introduce computational environments that are particularly useful in bioinformatics analyses such as R, BioPython, and Web services in bioinformatics. By the end of the class, students will have gained the ability to analyze data within the python interpreter (for example) and write well-documented, well-organized programs. (Fall)
BINF 6112. Bioinformatics Programming II. (3)
Prerequisite: BINF 6111. This course is the second semester of Introduction to Bioinformatics Programming I. In this semester, students will practice and refine skills learned in the first semester. New topics introduced will include: programming as part of a team, using sequence analysis algorithms in realistic settings; writing maintainable and re-usable code; Web programming; and graphical user interface development. At the end of the semester, students will be able to evaluate and deploy computer languages, tools, and software engineering techniques in bioinformatics research. (Spring)
BINF 6151/GRAD 6151. Professional Communications. (1) This course covers: Principles and useful techniques for effective oral presentations, poster presentations, scientific writing, use of references and avoiding plagiarism. Students in the class will critique and help revise each other’s presentations and learn how to avoid common pitfalls. In addition, students will learn how to properly organize and run a meeting. Students will prepare a CV, job application letter and job talk. (Fall).
BINF 6200. Statistics for Bioinformatics. (3)
This course aims to introduce students to statistical methods commonly used in bioinformatics. Basic concepts from probability, stochastic processes, information theory, and other statistical methods will be introduced and illustrated by examples from molecular biology, genomics and population genetics with an outline of algorithms and software. R is introduced as the programming language for homework. (Fall)
BINF 6201. Molecular Sequence Analysis. (3)
Prerequisite: BINF 6100 or equivalent. Introduction to bioinformatics methods that apply to molecular sequences. Introduction to biological databases online includeing sequence databases, molecular sequence data formats, sequence data preparation and database submission; local and global sequence alignment, multiple alignment, alignment scoring and alignment algorithms for protein and nucleic acids, gene finding and feature finding in sequences, models of molecular evolution, phylogenetic analysis, and comparative modeling. (Fall)
BINF 6202. Computational Structural Biology. (3)
Prerequisite: BINF 6101, 6201 or equivalents. This course covers: (a) the fundamental concepts of structural biology (chemical building blocks, structure, superstructure, folding, etc.); (b) structural databases and software for structure visualization; (c) structure determination and quality assessment; (d) protein structure comparison and the hierarchical nature of biomacromolecular structure classification; (e) protein structure prediction and assessment; and (f) sequence- and structure-based functional site prediction. (Fall)
BINF 6203. Genomics. (3)
Prerequisite: BINF 6100 or equivalent. This course surveys the application of high-throughput molecular biology and analytical biochemistry methods and data interpretation for those kinds of high volume biological data most commonly encountered by bioinformaticians. The relationship between significant biological questions, modern genomics technology methods, and the bioinformatics solutions that enable interpretation of complex data is emphasized. Topics include: Genome sequencing and assembly, annotation, and comparison; genome evolution and individual variation; function prediction; gene ontologies; transcription assay design, data acquisition, and data analysis; proteomics methods; methods for identification of molecular interactions; and metabolicdatabases, pathways and models. (Spring)
BINF 6204. Mathematical Systems Biology. (3)
Prerequisites: BINF 6200 and 6210 or equivalents. This course introduces basic concepts, principles and common methods used in systems biology. The class emphasizes molecular networks, models and applications, and covers the following topics: the structure of molecular networks; network motifs, their system properties and the roles they play in biological processes; complexity and robustness of molecular networks; hierarchy and modularity of molecular interaction networks; kinetic proofreading; optimal gene circuit design; the rules for gene regulation. (Spring)
BINF 6205. Computational Molecular Evolution. (3)
Prerequisites: BINF 6201 (Molecular Sequence Analysis) and BINF 6200 Statistics for Bioinformatics (or permission of the instructor). This course covers major aspects of molecular evolution and phylogenetics with an emphasis on the modeling and computational aspects of the fields. Topics will include: models of nucleotide substitution, models of amino acid and codon substitution, phylogenetic reconstruction, maximum likelihood methods, Bayesian methods, comparison of phylogenetic methods and tests on trees, neutral and adaptive evolution and simulating molecular evolution. Students will obtain an in-depth knowledge of the various models of evolutionary processes, a conceptual understanding of the methods associated with phylogenetic reconstruction and testing of those methods and develop an ability to take a data-set and address fundamental questions with respect to genome evolution. (On demand)
BINF 6210. Numerical Methods and Machine Learning in Bioinformatics. (3)
Prerequisites: Ability to program in a high-level language (Perl, Java, C#, Python, Ruby, C/C++), Calculus. This course focuses on commonly used numerical methods and machine learning techniques. Topics will include: solutions to linear systems, curve fitting, numerical differentiation and integration, PCA, SVD, ICA, SVM, PLS. Time permitting, Hidden Markov Chains and Monte Carlo simulations will be covered as well. Students will learn both the underlying theory and how to apply the theory to solve problems. (Fall)
BINF 6211. Design and Implementation of Bioinformatics Databases. (3)
In this course students learn the necessary skills to access and utilize public biomedical data repositories, and will be expected to design, instantiate, populate, query and maintain a personal database to support research in an assigned domain of bioinformatics. The course content includes common data models and representation styles, use of open-source relational DBMS, and basic and advanced SQL. The course focuses on how data integration is achieved, including the use of standardized schemas, exchange formats and ontologies. We examine large public biomedical data repositories such as GenBank and PDB, learn how to locate and assess the quality of data in Web-accessible databases, and look at representation, standards and access methods for such databases. (Spring)
BINF 6310. Advanced Statistics for Genomics. (3)
Prerequisite: BINF 6200 or equivalent. The first half of this course emphasizes canonical linear statistics (t-test, ANOVA, PCA) and their non-parametric equivalents. The second half of the course emphasizes Bayesian statistics and the application of Hidden Markov Models to problems in bioinformatics. Students should have fluency in a high-level programming language (PERL, Java, C# or equivalent) and will be expected, in assignments, to manipulate and analyze large public data sets. The course will utilize the R statistical package with the bioconductor extension. (Spring)
BINF 6311. Biophysical Modeling. (3)
This course covers: (a) an overview of mechanical force fields; (b) energy minimization; (c) dynamics simulations (molecular and coarse-grained); (d) Monte-Carlo methods; (e) systematic conformational analysis (grid searches); (f) classical representations of electrostatics (Poisson-Boltzmann, Generalized Born and Coulombic); (g) free energy decomposition schemes; and (h) hybrid quantum/classical (QM/MM) methods. (On demand)
BINF 6312. Computational Comparative Genomics. (3)
Prerequisite: BINF 6201 or equivalent. This course introduces computational methods for comparative genomics analyses. The course covers the following topics: the architecture of prokaryotic and eukaryotic genomes; the evolutionary concept in genomics; databases and resources for comparative genomics; principles and methods for sequence analysis; evolution of genomes; comparative gene function annotation; evolution of the central metabolic pathways and regulatory networks; genomes and the protein universe; cis-regulatory binding site prediction; operon and regulon predictions in prokaryotes; regulatory network mapping and prediction. (On demand)
BINF 6313. Structure, Function, and Modeling of Nucleic Acids. (3)
Prerequisite: BINF 6100-6101 or equivalent. This course covers the following topics: atomic structure, macromolecular structure-forming tendencies and dynamics of nucleic acids; identification of genes which code for functional nucleic acid molecules; cellular roles and metabolism of nucleic acids; 2D and 3D abstractions of nucleic acid macromolecules and methods for structural modeling and prediction; modeling of hybridization kinetics and equilibria; hybridization-based molecular biology protocols, detection methods and molecular genetics methods; and the role of modeling in designing these experiments and predicting their outcome. (On demand)
BINF 6350. Biotechnology and Genomics Laboratory. (3) Prerequisite: none. This course teaches basic wet-lab techniques commonly used in biotechnology to generate genomics data. Lectures will cover methods for sample isolation, cell disruption, nucleic acid and protein purification, nucleic acid amplification, protein isolation and characterization, molecular labeling methods and commonly used platforms for characterizing genome-wide molecular profiles. In particular we will discuss and learn to perform: tissue culture and LCM isolation of cells, DNA sequencing methods, DNA fingerprinting methods, RT-qPCR and microarrays of cDNA, 1D and 2D gels for protein separation, protein activity assays, and proteomics platforms. Lectures will describe emerging methodologies and platforms, and will discuss the ways in which the wet-lab techniques inform the design and use of bioinformatics tools, and how the tools carry out the processing and filtering that leads to reliable data. The course will also discuss the commercial products beginning to emerge from genomics platforms. (Spring)
BINF 6380. Programming III. (3)
Prerequisite: BINF 6112 or equivalent.
This course emphasizes implementation of bioinformatics algorithms in the context of parallel processing. Topics covered depend on instructor expertise and student interest but may include development of multi-threaded applications, developing for multi-core processors and utilization of large clusters and “cloud” supercomputers. Students will be expected to complete a significant independent project (Fall).
BINF 6400. Internship Project. (1-3)
Prerequisite: Admission to graduate standing in Bioinformatics. Project is chosen and completed under the guidance of an industry partner, and will result in an acceptable technical report. (Fall, Spring)
BINF 6600. Seminar. (1)
Prerequisite: Admission to graduate standing in Bioinformatics. Departmental seminar. Weekly seminars will be given by bioinformatics researchers from within the University and across the world. (Fall, Spring)
BINF 6601. Journal Club. (1)
Prerequisites: Admission to graduate standing in Bioinformatics. Each week, a student in the class is assigned to choose and present a paper from the primary bioinformatics literature. (Fall, Spring)
BINF 6900. Masters’ Thesis. (1-3)
Prerequisites: Twelve graduate credits and permission of instructor. Project is chosen and completed under the guidance of a graduate faculty member, and will result in an acceptable master's thesis and oral defense. (On demand)
BINF 6880. Independent Study. (1-3) Faculty supervised research experience to supplement regular course offerings.
BINF 7999. Master’s Degree Graduate Residency Credit. (1)
(Fall, Spring, Summer)
BINF 8100. Biological Basis of Bioinformatics. (3)
Prerequisites: Admission to graduate standing in Bioinformatics and undergraduate training in Computer Science or other non-biological discipline. This course provides a foundation in molecular genetics and cell biology focusing on foundation topics for graduate training in bioinformatics and genomics. (Fall)
BINF 8101. Energy and Interaction in Biological Modeling. (3)
Prerequisites: Admission to graduate standing in Bioinformatics. This course covers: (i.) the major organic and inorganic chemical features of biological macromolecules; (ii.) the physical forces that shape biological molecules, assemblies and cells; (iii.) the chemical driving forces that govern living systems; (iv.) the molecular roles of biological macromolecules and common metabolites; (v.) and the pathways of energy generation and storage. Each section of the course builds upon the relevant principles in biology and chemistry to explain the most common mathematical and physical abstractions used in modeling in the relevant context. (Spring)
BINF 8111. Bioinformatics Programming I. (3)
Prerequisite: Admission to graduate standing in Bioinformatics. This course introduces fundamentals of programming for bioinformatics using a high-level object-oriented language such as python. The first weeks cover core data types, syntax, and functional programming, focusing on construction of programs from small, testable parts. Students will learn productive use of the Unix environment, focusing on Unix utilities that are particularly useful in bioinformatics. The course will cover object-oriented programming, introduce analysis of algorithms and sequence alignment methods, and introduce computational environments that are particularly useful in bioinformatics analyses such as R, BioPython, and Web services in bioinformatics. By the end of the class, students will have gained the ability to analyze data within the python interpreter (for example) and write well-documented, well-organized programs. (Fall)
BINF 8112. Bioinformatics Programming II. (3)
Prerequisite: BINF 8111. This is a continuation of Bioinformatics Programming I (BINF 8111). This course is the second semester of Introduction to Bioinformatics Programming I. In this semester, students will practice and refine skills learned in the first semester. New topics introduced will include: programming as part of a team, using sequence analysis algorithms in realistic settings; writing maintainable and re-usable code; Web programming; and graphical user interface development. At the end of the semester, students will be able to evaluate and deploy computer languages, tools, and software engineering techniques in bioinformatics research. (Spring)
BINF 8151/GRAD 8151. Professional Communications. (1)This course covers: Principles and useful techniques for effective oral presentations, poster presentations, scientific writing, use of references and avoiding plagiarism. Students in the class will critique and help revise each other’s presentations and learn how to avoid common pitfalls. In addition, students will learn how to properly organize and run a meeting. Students will prepare a CV, job application letter and job talk. (Fall).
BINF 8200. Statistics for Bioinformatics. (3)
This course aims to introduce statistical methods commonly used in bioinformatics. Basic concepts from probability, stochastic processes, information theory, and other statistical methods will be introduced and illustrated by examples from molecular biology, genomics and population genetics with an outline of algorithms and software. R is introduced as the programming language for homework. (Fall)
BINF 8201. Molecular Sequence Analysis. (3)
Prerequisite: BINF 8100 or equivalent. BINF 8100 or equivalent. Introduction to bioinformatics methods that apply to molecular sequences. Introduction to biological databases online includeing sequence databases, molecular sequence data formats, sequence data preparation and database submission; local and global sequence alignment, multiple alignment, alignment scoring and alignment algorithms for protein and nucleic acids, gene finding and feature finding in sequences, models of molecular evolution, phylogenetic analysis, and comparative modeling. (Fall)
BINF 8202. Computational Structural Biology. (3)
Prerequisite: BINF 8101, 8201 or equivalents. This course covers: (a) the fundamental concepts of structural biology (chemical building blocks, structure, superstructure, folding, etc.); (b) structural databases and software for structure visualization; (c) structure determination and quality assessment; (d) protein structure comparison and the hierarchical nature of biomacromolecular structure classification; (e) protein structure prediction and assessment; and (f) sequence- and structure-based functional site prediction. (Fall)
BINF 8203. Genomics. (3)
Prerequisite: BINF 8100 or equivalent. This course surveys the application of high-throughput molecular biology and analytical biochemistry methods and data interpretation for those kinds of high volume biological data most commonly encountered by bioinformaticians. The relationship between significant biological questions, modern genomics technology methods, and the bioinformatics solutions that enable interpretation of complex data is emphasized. Topics include: Genome sequencing and assembly, annotation, and comparison; genome evolution and individual variation; function prediction; gene ontologies; transcription assay design, data acquisition, and data analysis; proteomics methods; methods for identification of molecular interactions; and metabolicdatabases, pathways and models. (Spring)
BINF 8204. Mathematical Systems Biology. (3)
Prerequisites: BINF 8200 and 8210 or equivalents. This course introduces basic concepts, principles and common methods used in systems biology. The class emphasizes molecular networks, models and applications, and covers the following topics: the structure of molecular networks; network motifs, their system properties and the roles they play in biological processes; complexity and robustness of molecular networks; hierarchy and modularity of molecular interaction networks; kinetic proofreading; optimal gene circuit design; the rules for gene regulation. (Spring)
BINF 8205. Computational Molecular Evolution. (3)
Pre-requisites: BINF 8201 (Molecular Sequence Analysis) and BINF 8200 (Statistics for Bioinformatics) or permission of the instructor. This course will cover major aspects of molecular evolution and phylogenetics with an emphasis on the modeling and computational aspects of the fields. Topics will include: models of nucleotide substitution, models of amino acid and codon substitution, phylogenetic reconstruction, maximum likelihood methods, Bayesian methods, comparison of phylogenetic methods and tests on trees, neutral and adaptive evolution and simulating molecular evolution. Students will obtain an in-depth knowledge of the various models of evolutionary processes, a conceptual understanding of the methods associated with phylogenetic reconstruction and testing of those methods and develop an ability to take a data-set and address fundamental questions with respect to genome evolution. (On demand)
BINF 8210. Numerical Methods and Machine Learning in Bioinformatics. (3)
Prerequisites: Ability to program in a high-level language (Perl, Java, C#, Python, Ruby, C/C++), Calculus. This course focuses on commonly used numerical methods and machine learning techniques. Topics will include: solutions to linear systems, curve fitting, numerical differentiation and integration, PCA, SVD, ICA, SVM, PLS. Time permitting, Hidden Markov Chains and Monte Carlo simulations will be covered as well. Students will learn both the underlying theory and how to apply the theory to solve problems. (Fall)
BINF 8211. Design and Implementation of Bioinformatics Databases. (3)
In this course students will acquire skills needed to access and utilize public biomedical data repositories, and will be expected to design, instantiate, populate, query and maintain a personal database to support research in an assigned domain of bioinformatics. The course content includes common data models and representation styles, use of open-source relational DBMS, and basic and advanced SQL. The course focuses on how data integration is achieved, including the use of standardized schemas, exchange formats and ontologies. We will examine large public biomedical data repositories such as GenBank and PDB, learn how to locate and assess the quality of data in Web-accessible databases, and look at representation, standards and access methods for such databases. (Spring)
BINF 8310. Advanced Statistics for Genomics. (3)
Prerequisite: BINF 8200 or equivalent. The first half of this course emphasizes canonical linear statistics (t-test, ANOVA, PCA) and their non-parametric equivalents. The second half of the course emphasizes Bayesian statistics and the application of Hidden Markov Models to problems in bioinformatics. Students should have fluency in a high-level programming language (PERL, Java, C# or equivalent) and will be expected, in assignments, to manipulate and analyze large public data sets. The course will utilize the R statistical package with the Bioconductor extension. (Spring)
BINF 8311. Biophysical Modeling. (3)
This course covers: (a) an overview of mechanical force fields; (b) energy minimization; (c) dynamics simulations (molecular and coarse-grained); (d) Monte-Carlo methods; (e) systematic conformational analysis (grid searches); (f) classical representations of electrostatics (Poisson-Boltzmann, Generalized Born and Coulombic); (g) free energy decomposition schemes; and (h) hybrid quantum/classical (QM/MM) methods. (On demand)
BINF 8312. Computational Comparative Genomics. (3)
Prerequisite: BINF 8201 or equivalent. This course introduces computational methods for comparative genomics analyses. The course covers the following topics: the architecture of prokaryotic and eukaryotic genomes; the evolutionary concept in genomics; databases and resources for comparative genomics; principles and methods for sequence analysis; evolution of genomes; comparative gene function annotation; evolution of the central metabolic pathways and regulatory networks; genomes and the protein universe; cis-regulatory binding site prediction; operon and regulon predictions in prokaryotes; and regulatory network mapping and prediction. (On demand)
BINF 8313. Structure, Function, and Modeling of Nucleic Acids. (3)
Prerequisite: BINF 8100-8101 or equivalent. The course covers the following topics: atomic structure, macromolecular structure-forming tendencies and dynamics of nucleic acids; identification of genes which code for functional nucleic acid molecules, cellular roles and metabolism of nucleic acids; 2D and 3D abstractions of nucleic acid macromolecules and methods for structural modeling and prediction; modeling of hybridization kinetics and equilibria; hybridization-based molecular biology protocols, detection methods and molecular genetics methods, and the role of modeling in designing these experiments and predicting their outcome. (On demand)
BINF 8350. Biotechnology and Genomics Laboratory. (3)Prerequisite: none. This course teaches basic wet-lab techniques commonly used in biotechnology to generate genomics data. Lectures will cover methods for sample isolation, cell disruption, nucleic acid and protein purification, nucleic acid amplification, protein isolation and characterization, molecular labeling methods and commonly used platforms for characterizing genome-wide molecular profiles. In particular we will discuss and learn to perform: tissue culture and LCM isolation of cells, DNA sequencing methods, DNA fingerprinting methods, RT-qPCR and microarrays of cDNA, 1D and 2D gels for protein separation, protein activity assays, and proteomics platforms. Lectures will describe emerging methodologies and platforms, and will discuss the ways in which the wet-lab techniques inform the design and use of bioinformatics tools, and how the tools carry out the processing and filtering that leads to reliable data. The course will also discuss the commercial products beginning to emerge from genomics platforms. (Spring)
BINF 8380. Programming III. (3)
Prerequisite: BINF 8112 or equivalent. This course emphasizes implementation of bioinformatics algorithms in the context of parallel processing. Topics covered depend on instructor expertise and student interest but may include development of multi-threaded applications, developing for multi-core processors and utilization of large clusters and “cloud” supercomputers. Students will be expected to complete a significant independent project (Fall).
BINF 8600. Seminar. (1)
Prerequisites: Admission to graduate standing in Bioinformatics. Departmental seminar. Weekly seminars will be given by bioinformatics researchers from within the university and across the world. (Fall, Spring)
BINF 8601. Journal Club. (1)
Prerequisites: Admission to graduate standing in Bioinformatics. Each week, a student in the class is assigned to choose and present a paper from the primary bioinformatics literature. (Fall, Spring)
BINF 8911 Research Rotation I (2), BINF 8912 Research Rotation II (2).
Faculty supervised research experience in bioinformatics to supplement regular course offerings. (Fall, Spring, Summer)
BINF 8991 Doctoral Dissertation Research (1-9).
Individual investigation culminating in the preparation and presentation of a doctoral dissertation. (Fall, Spring, Summer)
BINF 9999. Doctoral Degree Graduate Residency Credit. (1)
(Fall, Spring, Summer)