CMPU 353 - Bioinformatics

Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)

(Same as BIOL 353) DNA is the blueprint of life. Although it’s composed of only four nucleotide “letters” (A, C. T, G), the order and arrangement of these letters in a genome gives rise to the diversity of life on earth. Thousands of genomes have been partially sequenced, representing billions of nucleotides. How can we reach this vast expanse of sequence data to find patterns that provide answers to ecological, evolutionary, agricultural, and biomedical questions? Bioinformatics applies high-performance computing to discover patterns in large sequence datasets. In this class students from biology and computer science work together to formulate interesting biological questions and to design algorithms and computational experiments to answer them.

Prerequisite(s): For students registering under the BIOL prefix, the prerequisites are one unit of any 200-level biology and one unit of Genetics (BIOL 238, BIOL 244, or BIOL 248); BIOL students do not need to have any Computer Science background.

For students registering under the CMPU prefix, the prerequisite is CMPU 203 or permission of the instructor; CMPU students do not need to have any Biology background.

To register for this course students must satisfy either the Biology or Computer Science prerequisites, but not both.

Two 2-hour periods.