Bioinformatics 1

Bioinformatics is a discipline that involves the use of computer science and biology to solve biomedical or biological problems. It utilizes large amounts of data and complicated datasets to make deductions which are useful in solving medical or biological problems. Through bioinformatics, the aetiology of diseases can be investigated at gene level and understood hence making the discipline a vital tool in medicine. In this course, the student is introduced to the concepts of Bioinformatics. Hands-on sessions will familiarize students with the details and use of common tools and resources. The course will cover the use of NCBI's Entrez and EBI's SRS, EMBL, GenBank, DDBJ and other biological databases, file formats, BLAST, PSI-BLAST, ClustalW, phylogenetic analysis, protein analysis, Pfam, PRINTS, BLOCKS, Prosite and the PDB and MMDB. Principles of drug design (both structure-based and ligand-based) will be covered in depth and topics in whole transcriptome shotgun sequencing (RNA SEQ), transcriptomics, systems biology, and metabolomics will also be covered. An introduction to database design and the principles of programming languages and HTML/CSS scripting and database design using MySQL will also be provided.

Hands-on sessions will familiarize students with the details and use of common tools and resources. The objective is to enhance the researchers’ capacity to conduct world class scientific research and boost their institution’s profile as a leading diagnostic and scientific centre.       Continue Reading »