S03 - Computational biology project
2018-2019 planning :
- M1 S03 BioComp 2018
Biology Master, ENS
Year : 1 (M1)
Semester : 1 (S1)
Course code :
BIO-M1-S03-S1
Course name :
Computational biology project
Coordinators :
ECTS :
6 (or 3 ECTS for the DENS/DSN)
Course with limited number of places. To enroll for this course, it is mandatory to directly contact the coordinators before September.
Keywords :
Bioinformatics, genomics, proteome, gene, protein structure, images, models
Prerequisites for the course :
Basic Python programming and Unix command-line is mandatory for this course. Students without this background can enroll for the course “BIO-M2-E01-S1 Training in mathematics and computer science” that takes place before the beginning of the semester. Students that will not enroll to this training will be asked to demonstrate their programming skills.
Course objectives and description :
The aim of this 50h course is to introduce students to bioinformatics, by consolidating their knowledge in fundamental principles, as well as opening to current research topics in computational biology. This course is organized in two parts : a theoretical week and a project tutored by a researcher.
The theoretical part includes programming courses (Python) applied to biology, and conferences in computational biology. The program evolves each year, and covers topics among : nucleic and proteic sequence analysis (determining functional and structural properties based on primary sequences, search for common characteristics among a collection of sequences, …), management of genomic information (annotation), approaches to predict tridimensional structure of proteins (“threading”, analogy,…), interactions between molecules, images analyses, modeling.
The project aims at answering a particular problem faced by a researcher. It is not a simple exercice, but an original project that will help the researcher to move forward on his topic. The project is usually conducted by group of two students, tutored by the researcher, and supervised for the bioinformatics aspects by the coordinators of the course.
Assessment / evaluation : :
The evaluation will be a short written report of the project, and an oral presentation in front of the student groups and the tutors. The interaction with the researcher will also be evaluated. A different grade may be given to the students of a same group.
