Course description:
Why a course on bioinformatics for engineers?
Bioinformatics is by definition an interdisciplinary field, but transitioning from an engineering background into bioinformatics requires more than a mere introduction to biology. Bioinformatics deals with algorithms and computer systems dedicated to the analysis of large datasets of biological information. From an engineering point of view, therefore, biologists are the clients and, as a result, biology itself informs many of the decisions that can and must be made when designing bioinformatics algorithms, pipelines and their deployment on hardware resources.
Why a boot camp course?
Biology and the biomedical sciences comprise a very large domain of science that encompasses many subfields with myriad bioinformatics applications. It is hence impossible to cover a significant part of this broad expanse in any short introductory course, and when attempted, such courses readily induce information overload. This course focuses on two more immediate endeavors: showing participants what the field has to offer and breaking down the perceived barriers to entrance.
What to get out of it?
This boot camp course has been designed to give you the three most essential elements in approaching bioinformatics:
- the conceptual basis for the most common lexicon in modern biology
- a hands-on view of the nature, scope and format of the problems
- data wrangling and interactive insight into the methods, practices and operational framesets of modern biology.
Armed with these, you should be able to approach collaborative projects in bioinformatics, interact with biologists to establish partnerships, approach primary literature in biomedicine and identify areas on which to seek further training in bioinformatics.
How will I learn?
The course will combine traditional lecturing with hands-on practice. The hands-on component will comprise team-based literature reading, discussion and hands-on data anlysis. Working in small groups, participants will try to digest articles in different areas of experimental biology that make use of bioinformatics solutions, focusing on the experimental methods while analyzing how the two approaches can be effectively combined to probe further into open problems in current biology.
Application procedure:
See http://www.bioinformaticsbarcelona.eu/training/training-at-bib/31/bioinformatics-bootcamp-for-engineers for full course details including registration procedure.