NBIB15021U Fundamental Bioinformatics

Volume 2024/2025
Education

BSc Programme in Biochemistry
BSc Programme in Biology

Content

Biological databases, sequence alignment (pairwise and multiple), phylogeny, genomics, next generation sequencing, expression analysis, RNA-seq, RNA structure, systems biology.

Learning Outcome

After successfully completing the course students will be able to use, apply and understand some important bioinformatics tools, that can facilitate their future work in biological sciences (e.g. biology, biochemistry, biomedicine etc.).

 

Knowledge:

At the conclusion of the course, the students should be able to:

  • Explain the basic concepts behind the covered topics.
  • Describe the concepts and algorithms for the covered tools.
  • Suggest computational tools that could be used to solve a given biological problem.


Skills:

At the conclusion of the course, the students should be able to:

  • Use bioinformatics tools in the Linux command line and the usegalaxy.org.server.
  • Apply bioinformatics tools for sequence alignment (pairwise and multiple), phylogenetic analyses, RNA structure prediction, and differential gene expression analysis.
  • Find and use Biological databases for retrieving and displaying information.
  • Work with data from next generation sequencing experiments.


Competences:

At the conclusion of the course, the students should be able to:

  • Perform a correct computational analysis of a given biological problem, including relevant tools selection.
  • Explain and discuss strengths and weaknesses of the applied tools and how these affect the obtained results.
  • Suggest further analyses that could improve the results obtained.

See Absalon.

Basic genetics, biochemistry (incl. protein chemistry) and molecular biology.

The course is mandatory for Biochemistry. Biology students are generally not recommended to take this course in their second year. It is recommended that biology students have passed Matematik/Statistik, Almen Biokemi, Almen Molekylærbiologi and Evolutionsbiologi before taking this course. Molecular Biomedicine students are recommended to have passed Biokemi and Molekylærbiologi.
Flipped classroom teaching. The students watch recorded lectures and answer simple multiple choice quizzes before the class. The classes consists of a mixture of live lectures, small exercises and further discussion of questions to the curriculum. In the workshops, more elaborate exercises are solved in small groups and the solutions are submitted to Peer-grade. In the last week, an exam assignment (building of the tools covered in the workshops) is solved by the students. Active participation (timely submission of workshop solutions and peer reviewing of theses plus timely submission of the exam assignment) is required for participation in the oral exam
6 weeks with max 9 hours per week (6 hours class/problem-solving + 3 hours workshop exercises), followed by 1 week to solve the exam assignment.
Students should bring a laptop computer to fully benefit from the course, since the use of computers is an integrated part of the course. Students should know how to use and administer their computer. No expert knowledge or programming skills are needed. See course homepage for more details.
  • Category
  • Hours
  • Lectures
  • 42
  • Preparation
  • 142,5
  • Theory exercises
  • 21
  • Exam
  • 0,5
  • Total
  • 206,0
Continuous feedback during the course of the semester
Feedback by final exam (In addition to the grade)
Credit
7,5 ECTS
Type of assessment
Oral exam on basis of previous submission, 25 minutes (no preparation)
Type of assessment details
Oral individual exam based on curriculum and one week practical assignment, including submission of the exam assignment.
Aid
Only certain aids allowed
  • Practical assigment: All aids allowed 
  • Oral exam: No aids allowed 
Marking scale
7-point grading scale
Censorship form
No external censorship
Several internal examiners.
At the oral exam an examiner and an internal censor will be present.
Re-exam

Oral exam (25 minutes) based on curriculum (no preparation and no aids).

Criteria for exam assesment

In order to obtain the grade 12 the student should convincingly and accurately demonstrate the knowledge, skills and competences described under Learning Outcome.