Bioinformatics

Whether we are identifying cancerous cells, counting animals in an image, or comparing protein functions, we are likely relying on a suite of computational tools. Even then, doing these tasks at a meaningful scale quickly outpaces manual analysis. How, then, are we supposed to identify cancerous cells in 200,000 patients a day or compare proteins across all animal life? In this course, we will learn how to approach biological questions using programmatic thinking. We will refine your data collection strategies, learn the basics of programs and databases for image processing, sequence and phenotypic data, and functional annotation. Lastly, we will apply this knowledge, creating scripts to automate analysis for datasets too large for manual processing. No previous programming experience is necessary. (BIOL 0140 or BIOL 0145). 3 hrs. lect. / 3 hrs. lab