Department information

 

Bioinformatics

Modern biological sciences are based heavily on computational methods. Molecular biology, genetics, and ecology, for instance, require fairly complicated computational methods, and new methods are constantly needed. Bioinformatics teaching aims at educating developers of such methods, and specialists on managing and processing biological data. Bioinformatics graduates should acquire firm skills in mathematics and statistics, and basic knowledge in biology. An advanced course in at least one branch of bioinformatics should be taken. After acquiring this strong basis it is possible to flexibly choose the focus of studies in between data analysis and bioinformatics, and to specialize on either one subfield of computer science or gain general knowledge of several subfields.
Graduates are employed as experts of computational methods in research institutes and companies.

Bioinformatics at the Department of Computer Science

At the Department of Computer Science, there are three routes to bioinformatics specialization

• Master's Degree Programme in Bioinformatics (MBI), that has a call for applications each spring. This is the recommended route for several reasons:
• Computer science subprogramme on Bioinformatics and Computational Biology (part the new study system) , that can be chosen by students that have started their studies prior to 1.8.2006
• Computer science subprogramme on Bioinformatics and Computational Biology (part the old study system) , that can be chosen by students that have started their studies prior to 1.8.2005.

See additionally Bioinformatics at the University of Helsinki.


At the department, also neuroinformatics is studied, that can in broad terms be defined as the intersection of information technology and neuroscience.

Bioinformatics staff

At the department of computer science, among others the following people work in bioinformatics:

• Esa Pitkänen, university lecturer, special tutor
• Juho Rousu, prof (acting), professor in charge (Computational Methods in Metabolomics, Prediction of Biological Structures)
• Hannu Toivonen, prof. (Biological data mining, Computational methods in Gene mapping)
• Esko Ukkonen, prof., research director of HIIT/BRU (Sequence analysis algoritms, Algorithms in Strutural and Systems Biology)
• Aapo Hyvärinen, university lecturer (neuroinformatics)

A more complete list of bioinformatics researchers and teachers can be found on the MBI web pages.

Teaching in 2006-2007

Starting autumn 2006, bioinformatics teaching is given under the MBI-programme. Students in the old Bioinformatics and Computational biology sub-programmes may take MBI courses given by the Department of Computer Science without restriction. For MBI courses organized by TKK, the agreement of flexible study right (JOO) is required from other than MBI students.

During academic year 2006-2007, the course "582469 Computational Systems Biology" can be taken by a separate exam or alternatively by taking the courses "582605 Metabolic modeling" and "582612 Practical course in microarray data analysis".

In Autumn 2006, the following lecture courses in bioinformatics will be given:

• 582606 Introduction to Bioinformatics (4 cr)
• 582604 Practical Course on Biodatabases (4 cr)
• 582468 Computational Neuroscience (6 cr)

In spring 2007, the following lecture courses in bioinformatics will be given: :

• 582483 Biological sequence analysis (6 cr)
• 582605 Metabolic modeling (4 cr)
• 582450 Modeling of vision (5 cr)
• 582612 Practical course in microarray data analysis (4 cr)

The following biological courses targeted for bioinformatics students are given:

• Autumn 2006: 399672 Biology for methodological scientists (8 cr)
  
• Spring 2007: 399673 Measurement techniques for bioinformatics (4 cr). MBI-course with restricted enrollment (MBI-students have priority)
  

Professor in charge

during 2006-2007 is. Juho Rousu.

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Last updated September 15, 2005, by Veli Mäkinen.