Bioinformatics

The disciplines of biology and information technology are intersecting with increasing frequency, most notably in the emerging field of bioinformatics. Bioinformatics has been fueled by the advent of large-scale genome sequencing projects, which has generated enormous sets of mineable data representing an invaluable resource for biologists. Biology and computer science students in the course will gain a working knowledge of the basic principles of the others' discipline and will then collaborate together in class on bioinformatics projects. Topics include pairwise and multiple sequence alignments, phylogenetic trees, gene expression analysis, and personalized medicine.