BIOS 477/877 Bioinformatics and Molecular Evolution (3 credits)

  HOME Schedule Links My UNL Moriyama Lab UNLBIOINFO
[Last updated: January 10, 2009]

  Instructor: Etsuko Moriyama (School of Biological Sciences, N107 Beadle, emoriyama2@unl.edu)
Time: Tue/Thu 11:00 am - 12:15 pm (Office hours: Tue/Thu after the class until 1:15 pm, or by appointment)
Classroom:128 Manter Hall
Prerequisites: (BIOS101 or BIOS102) and (BIOS206 or parallel or CHEM 251); or BIOC 221 or equivalent; or permission. Basic statistics recommended.
Registration information: Call #2156/2187
Course Web: http://bioinfolab.unl.edu/emlab/Courses/BIOS877/current/index.html

Textbook: Marketa Zvelebil & Jeremy Baum. 2007. Understanding Bioinformatics. Garland Science, New York, NY.
— The book Web site: http://www.garlandscience.com/textbooks/0815340249.asp —

Course description:
This introductory bioinformatics course covers major topics in bioinformatics including pair-wise alignment, multiple alignment, similarity search, protein domain search, distance estimation, phylogenetic reconstruction, gene prediction, protein classification, and structural analysis. Fundamental concepts of molecular evolution and their relevance to bioinformatics studies will be emphasized.

Course preparation:
Students are expected to understand the basic molecular biology/genetics. This course does not include any review session for molecular biology and genetics. Here is a check list for basic molecular biology/genetics keywords. You are expected to be familiar with at least these keywords. Chapters 1 and 2 of the textbook have nice description of molecular biology basics. Online materials for your self-study are also listed in this page.

Programming ability is not required nor expected. Students are required to use computers with internet connections for their homework assignments. Contact Bioinformatics Core Facility (located in the Beadle Center), if computer support is required.

This course does not have its own computer lab component. Students will use some bioinformatics tools for their homework assignments by themselves. For more hands-on experience with various bioinformatics and genomics software, you may want to check BIOS427/827 Practical Bioinformatics Laboratory.

Course requirements and grading:
There will be no in-class exams. Instead, multiple homework assignments will be given throughout the course, approximately one assignment/week. They will include:
  • small assignments including manual computing for core algorithms, small sequence analysis using bioinformatics tools on the web, etc.
  • article reveiws for core bioinformatics methods and recent bioinformatics research
Fewer written reports (article reviews) will be required for undergraduate students. See "Notes on grading" in the Course Documents on Blackboard for more detail.

— Complying the Fifteenth Week Policy &mdash The final assignment will be given during the week before the 15th week. It will be due before the final week. This final assignment will cover the contents from the entire semester, and will be longer than the regular assignments.

Course home page and Blackboard:
This web site is used to post the information related to this course. It will be updated frequently. So check this site often. Blackboard will be also used to distribute email messages, assignments, grade information, etc. IMPORTANT!! Check your email address on your blackboard account. Otherwise, you may miss some important messages.