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 Postgraduate Course: Bioinformatics 2 (INFR11005)
Course Outline
| School | School of Informatics | College | College of Science and Engineering |  
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) | Availability | Available to all students |  
| SCQF Credits | 10 | ECTS Credits | 5 |  
 
| Summary | Bioinformatics is at the interface between two of the most influential scientific fields. An appreciation of computational and biological sciences, in particular the terminology employed in both fields, is essential for those working at such an interface. In this course, we aim to cover the following: 
 * The concepts of computer science that relate to problems in biological sciences.
 * Commercial and academic perspectives on bioinformatics.
 * The impact of bioinformatics on the methodologies used in biological science.
 * The influence biological science has on computing science.
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| Course description | The course will cover the following: 
 * Next generation sequencing technologies
 * Machine learning algorithms for sequence analysis
 * Computational assembly of genomic sequences
 * Gene finding
 * Advanced functional genomics, expression analysis
 * Industry guest lecture
 * The future of bioinformatics: proteomics, neuroinformatics, e-science.
 
 Relevant QAA Computing Curriculum Sections:  Data Structures and Algorithms, Developing Technologies
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites | It is RECOMMENDED that students have passed    
Bioinformatics 1 (INFR11016) 
 | Co-requisites |  |  
| Prohibited Combinations |  | Other requirements | This course is open to all Informatics students including those on joint degrees. For external students where this course is not listed in your DPT, please seek special permission from the course organiser. 
 This course assumes some mathematics at the level of undergraduate computer science, including:
 - Probability theory, particularly discrete random variables;
 - Basic statistics
 
 No specific programming is taught or required, but students should be familiar with using software packages and will be required to use some packages in R for the lab/assignment.
 
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Information for Visiting Students 
| Pre-requisites | None |  
Course Delivery Information
| Not being delivered |  
Learning Outcomes 
| On completion of this course, the student will be able to: 
        describe the main computational algorithms used in the analysis of biological sequencesdiscuss the practical limitations of sequence analysis methods and contrast the methods availableappraise common biological data sources and the key contributing error / noise sources in such datademonstrate an understanding of how experimental design in biology is critical to subsequent data analysis and representation in bioinformaticscritically evaluate research literature in the field |  
Reading List 
| Jones N.C. and Pevzner P. (2004) An Introduction to Bioinformatics Algorithms, MIT Press |  
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills | Not entered |  
| Keywords | Not entered |  
Contacts 
| Course organiser | Dr Ian Simpson Tel: (0131 6)50 2747
 Email:
 | Course secretary | Ms Lindsay Seal Tel: (0131 6)50 5194
 Email:
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