1 Course Description

1.1 Prerequisites

  • Basic background in molecular biology
  • Access to a computer with an internet browser

1.2 Instructional Objectives:

  • Provide an introduction to bioinformatics
  • Provide an overview of the application areas of bioinformatics, with a focus on DNA sequence analysis, and the human genome.
  • Provide an introduction to major biolmedical and genomic databases.
  • Explain how to locate and extract data from key bioinformatics databases and resources
  • Introduce R, RStudio and BioConductor

1.3 Student Learning Outcomes:

At successful completion of the course, students will be able to

  • Locate and use the main databases at the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) and European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI) resources
  • Know the major databases and tools and be able to use them to extract and analyse specific information.
  • Extract data from specific databases using accessions numbers, gene names etc.
  • Use selected tools at NCBI and EBI to run simple analyses on genomic sequences
  • Identify features on the sequence such as coding regions and restriction enzyme sites.
  • Interpret sequence analysis results.
  • Design PCR primers.
  • Use BioConductor R packages to perform elementary DNA sequence analysis.