Introduction to Applied Genomics: BIOL 4030/6030 (Fall) (3 credits)

The course exposes students to the genomic and bioinformatic skills that are becoming increasingly important in an era where biomedical science and biotechnology have become central to modern biology.

Core components of the course include an introduction to the Linux command line environment, principles of next generation sequencing (NGS) technology, and numerous techniques associated with the downstream processing and analysis of genomic data. These techniques include genome assembly, gene prediction, annotation, databases, gene/genome clustering, recombination detection, phylogenomics, transcriptomics, and metagenomics.

The course has a strong emphasis on the practical application of bioinformatics skills (in particular the use of LINUX/bash) to solve biological problems, with these activities incorporated into the majority of course work.