Biologists have a lot of data from large-scale biology projects like the sequencing of the human genome or gene expression surveys using RNAseq, microarrays, and other technologies. Scientists face the challenge of analyzing these data and extracting useful information about the system being studied. This course is very hands-on and focuses on how to use existing bioinformatics resources, mainly web-based databases and programs, to access the vast amount of data available to answer common questions for biologists.
In two parts, topics covered include multiple sequence alignments and phylogenetics.
The first section, Bioinformatic Methods I dealt with databases, Blast and multiple sequence alignments. It also covered selection analysis, metagenomics, and phylogenetics.
The second part of Bioinformatics Methods II will include motif searching, protein interactions, structural bioinformatics and analysis of gene expression data. It also covers cis-element prediction.
These courses are useful for students who want to study molecular medicine or biological sciences.
These courses are based upon one that was taught at the University of Toronto to undergraduates with basic molecular biology knowledge. If you're not familiar with this, something like https://learn.saylor.org/course/bio101 might be helpful. This course does not require programming, but you will need to do some command-line work in the fifth module.
Bioinformatic Methods II has been regularly updated and was last updated in February 2022.
