Description
The module has five themes: (1) Genomics (including gene finding, transcription factor binding site prediction, disease genes, applications in therapy etc.), (2) Computing (including basics of programming, computer hardware, relational databases and machine learning), (3) Analysis of protein sequences (including an introduction to resources, sequence alignment, structural and/or functional motif recognition, estimation of significance, etc.), (4) Analysis of protein structure (including structure comparison, fold classification, structure prediction, protein evolution, etc.), (5) Omics and systems (including transcriptomics and ideas of systems biology).
In addition to lectures you will complete an online bioinformatics practical and analyse a ‘mystery protein’ using the tools and resources you have introduced to in the lectures
By the end of this 15-credit module, students should have:
- acquired a solid grounding in theoretical and practical aspects of computational molecular biology
- become familiar with current approaches to nucleic acid and protein sequence analysis, and with the concepts of protein structure analysis
- extended their skills in data interpretation and have understood the often-conflicting concepts of mathematical and biological significance
- been introduced to the World Wide Web and have developed an understanding of its use as a tool for accessing biological data
- had experience in writing a concise laboratory report
Indicative lecture topics (based on 2023/2024 syllabus)
- Computing
- Gene finding
- TFBS finding
- Sequence alignment methods
- Sequence alignment and searching – BLAST, dynamic programming
- Multiple sequence alignment and profiles
- Biological databases
- Sequence analysis protocols
- Structure comparison and structure classification
- Homology modelling of antibodies
- Bioinformatics in a medical context
- Drug docking and design
- Transcriptomics
- Protein interaction and networks
- Machine learning in Bioinformatics
- Introduction to systems biology
Module deliveries for 2024/25 academic year
Last updated
This module description was last updated on 19th August 2024.
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