Bioinformatics, Systems and Synthetic Biology
Course options and guidance for the Bioinformatics, Systems and Synthetic Biology topic area
What will I learn from courses in this topic?
These courses will prepare you for employment in the biotech industry or for entry into a PhD programme. They may be of interest to students of machine learning or data science as a particular application area, or for students who want to focus more deeply on connections between biology and computer science.
These courses will familiarise you with the storage and analysis of biological data, how biological systems are modelled, and the emerging field of synthetic biology where biological components and systems can be constructed from first principles. In particular, you will learn what information can be extracted from biological data (e.g., information related to phylogenetic trees, biological networks, protein structure and function, developmental processes, genetic correlates of disease, etc.) and what techniques can be used for extracting and modelling such information.
What courses are available?
Courses in the School of Informatics
These courses are appropriate if you want some knowledge of bioinformatics as an application area of machine learning or data science, especially if you are considering a thesis project involving biological data. They are also appropriate for students wanting to focus more deeply in the area.
- Bioinformatics 1(10 credits, Semester 1)
Courses in the School of Biological Sciences
These courses are most appropriate for students who want to focus more deeply on this topic.
Courses in SBS may have size quotas or earlier registration deadlines than Informatics, so register as early as possible for these courses. It is also a good idea to check with the course organiser to make sure you have the right background for these courses because prerequisite knowledge may not always be clearly listed in the descriptor.
Semester 1
- Information Processing in Biological Cells (10 credits)
Semester 2
- Bioinformatics Algorithms (10 credits)
- Functional Genomic Technologies(10 credits)
- Next Generation Genomics(10 credits)
If you are interested in focusing especially on Bioinformatics and would like to improve your practical programming and computing skills, you might consider taking the following course instead of one of the programming courses listed in your DPT. However, this course may be unsuitable for students with previous computer science degrees.
- Bioinformatics Programming and System Management (20 credits, Semester 1)
Related topics
Dealing with biological data typically requires knowledge of machine learning techniques (to discover patterns and make predictions) and data management techniques (to deal with very large quantities of data). You may also be interested in the related area of neuroinformatics, which focuses on data and computational processes from the brain.