The MBC information booklet - RMIT University

Chapter 4: Bioinformatics
4.2.2 MATH1300—
Analysis of
Medical Data
4.2.3 BIOL2034—
Bioinformatics
4.2.4 COSC2151—
Introduction to
Computational
Biology
22
Course Description
This course aims to deliver postgraduate researchers the skills needed to analyse data
specifically in a medical context. It covers both statistical and epidemiological techniques
using a computer based approached, with all methods described from their foundation.
Pre-requisite Courses and Assumed Knowledge and Capabilities
This course assumes that the students have:
• Basic IT skills including web browsing, e-mail, Windows based program usage, and
the ability to use a word-processor for report writing
• Fundamental mathematical skills to a graduate high-school standard
• A basic knowledge of medical terminology
For more information on the course, go to www.rmit.edu.au/courses2006/029566.
Note: This course is offered by the School of Applied Sciences.
Course Description
Bioinformatics is the computational management and use of biological information to
solve biological problems. This course will deliver descriptions of this rapidly evolving
field, and facilitate user access to and manipulation of the biological data. Topics will
include descriptions of genetic and biological databases and relevant tools available to
retrieve and analyse the information within these. Descriptions of various techniques,
such as evolutionary analysis, data mining, protein structure/function and computational
drug discovery will be given. RMIT staff and external scientists working in the field will
deliver topics. This course is designed to enable students to evaluate data using
bioinformatics, and to better identify potential uses and opportunities of this data within
their industry context. Students will gain an appreciation of the potential of new
technologies to their industry sector.
Pre-requisite Courses and Assumed Knowledge and Capabilities
• BIOL2184 Advanced Molecular Biology (or equivalent)
For more information on the course, go to www.rmit.edu.au/courses2006/028321.
Aim
As the rate of acquisition of biological data increases exponentially, the management,
interrogation and manipulation of this data becomes a complex process that requires
novel software solutions. These solutions are the driving force behing Computational
Biology, lying at the intersection between the biological and IT fields. There is a
requirement for methodology to facilitate the acqusition, storage and retrieval of data, the
analysis of this data and computationally complex tasks such as the prediction of
macromolecular structure. This course will introduce these concepts and demonstrate
some of the computational techniques currently available.
Objectives
The objectives of this course are as follows:
• Introduce the aims and uses of computational biology.
• Describe the sources of data, in particular from the characterisation of genomes
and proteomes.
• Describe how biological information is stored and accurately retrieved.
• Introduce computational algorithms that can be used for querying and manipulating
biological data.
• Study some of the practical uses of these algorithms.
Prerequisites
• COSC1321 Computing Fundamentals
Syllabus
• Genomics, proteomics and bioinformatics.
- Introduction to the biological revolution. Data acquisition and storage.
Databases- format and querying. The challenges in Computational Biology.