Course description
Course description
Bioinformatics is changing as high throughput biological data collection becomes more Systems oriented. This means that employers are looking for people able to work across the traditional disciplines. The MSc in Bioinformatics at Manchester reflects these exciting developments, providing an integrated programme taught by researchers at the forefront of fields spanning Bioinformatics, Genomics and Systems Biology.
Bioinformatics has been an identifiable discipline for more than a decade, driven by the computational demands of high volumes of biological data. It incorporates both the development and application of algorithms to decipher biological relationships. Enormous success has been achieved, for example in defining homologous families of sequences at the DNA, RNA, and protein levels. However, our appreciation of function is changing rapidly as experimental analysis scales up to cellular and organismal viewpoints. At these levels, we are interested in the properties of a network of interacting components in a system, as well as the components themselves. The concepts or Systems Biology and Bioinformatics complement eachother, and both are addressed in this course. This combination reflects the current skills sought in academic and industrial (e.g. pharmaceutical) settings. An important feature is the extent to which computational biology is concerned with finding patterns in biological data, and generating hypotheses that feed back into experiments.
You will be based in the top-rated Faculty of Life Sciences at the University of Manchester. Teaching is delivered by more than 10 academic staff working in the fields of Bioinformatics, Genomics and Systems Biology, representing the breadth and depth of these areas across Faculties.
Module details
The taught part of the course consists of 90 credits, delivered from six 15 credit units. One of these units can optionally be a Short Project. The Long Project makes up the other 90 credits, and is performed in the summer, with opportunities for Industrial placement outside of Manchester. The course consists of core and optional units. An examples of a typical combination of units is given below. In addition to the assessed units, we provide students with a tutorial forum that includes discussion of research `hot topics', and with workshops designed to enhance transferable skills, such as communication and presentation.
Course Structure
Units are 15 credits unless stated otherwise.
A core* designation indicates that students may be able to take an alternate unit, with suitable evidence that the core skills have already been acquired.
Course content for year 1
Semester 1
Introduction to Bioinformatics (core) Lectures & Practicals - An introduction to the basic practical techniques of Bioinformatics, with emphasis on application to solving real research problems.
Introduction to Programming using Java (core*) Lectures & Practicals - Introduces students to a modern programming language.
Theory and Algorithms in Bioinformatics (core) Lectures & Practicals- Gives a foundation in the mathematical and statistical ideas that underlie Bioinformatics, with emphasis on computational algorithms.
Evolutionary Genetics Tutorials (option) - A selection of focussed tutorials looking at fundamentals and research applications of Evolutionary Genetics.
Semester 2
Genomes to Systems (core) Lectures - Describes the latest techniques and promotes an understanding of the rapidly growing literature.
Biocomputing (option) Lectures & Practicals - Further develop computing skills and applications with biological data including experience in the use of Perl, MySQL, and web-based programming, as well as Grid computing.
Metabolic Modelling (option) Lectures, Tutorials, Practicals - This unit will give students the skills required to model interactions within metabolic networks.
Rational structure-based drug design (option) Lectures, Tutorials, Practicals - Describing the application of structural and modelling tools in developing pharmaceutical compounds, including an Industrial perspective.
Short Project (option) - A short research project, applying skills learned on the course to a research problem in a University of Manchester Life Sciences laboratory.
Summer
Long Project (core, 90 credits) - This research project is carried out in a Manchester laboratory or as an external placement.
