BIO 260: BIOINFORMATICS

Bioinformatics is the umbrella term for a wide range of methods and tools used to analyze large and complex biological data sets, especially DNA and RNA sequence data. This course introduces students to broadly applicable bioinformatic methods. Students will learn to access and use information from public databases, align homologous sequences, construct and interpret phylogenetic trees, and extract information from genomes using a variety of computational tools, including the use of basic command line interface. Relevant primary literature will be analyzed and discussed. The laboratory portion of the course is dedicated to practice with the analysis tools introduced in lectures, and to student projects. Students will work in groups to explore real data sets, select and apply suitable bioinformatic methods, interpret analysis results in the context of published works, and present their findings to the class. This course counts as an elective towards the Biology, Biotechnology, and Data Analytics majors. Three lectures and one laboratory per week.