Students will study bioinformatic concepts in the areas of metagenomics, genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, biological networks and biostatistics. Through integrated lectures, practical hands-on exercises and project work, students will also be trained in analytical and programming skills to meet the emerging increase in data-driven knowledge generation in biology in the 21st century.

The course can be taken alone or in combination with the spring course “A Problem Based Approach to Cellular Biochemistry”. During this seminar style course, students will explore research topics in cellular biochemistry focused on the structure, function and regulation of selected cell components. In the best case, student efforts can be aligned with an ongoing or future research project.

Image based screening allows to measure in high throughput the phenotype of millions of individual cells to external perturbations. We have recently shown that image-based screening in human blood can help to find active treatments for patients with blood cancers. In this course we will take the students through the entire workflow (to the extent that biosafety regulations allow it).

Introduction to experimental and computational methods of systems biology. By using baker’s yeast as a thread through the series, we focus on global methods for analysis of and interference with biological functions. Illustrative applications to other organisms will highlight medical and biotechnological aspects.