Bioinformatics Computing: An Exportable Curriculum

Rochester Institute Of Tech, Rochester NY

Investigators

Abstract

Computer Science (31) Bioinformatics brings together the fields of biology, computer science, and information technology to analyze, among other things, the gigabytes of genome data that have been collected over the past fifteen years. The work that will be done by bioinformaticists in the 21st century will dramatically change the practice of medicine much like the discovery of the transistor altered the course of information technology in the 20th century. The national need for bioinformaticists, estimated by one study to be 20,000 by the year 2005, with the education and training to speak the complex languages of biology and computer science will not be met by one institution alone. The goal of this project is to develop courseware for general use in diverse contexts at other institutions, even those without a degree program in Bioinformatics. This project provides a packet of lecture presentations and laboratory manuals that can be widely disseminated and used by teams of biologists and computer scientists outside of RIT to support instruction in Bioinformatics. These instructional materials are being developed by an interdisciplinary team of biologists and computer scientists with input from academic partners from outside institutions. This work includes supporting material, prepared by computer scientists, written for biologists so that a biologist can understand the computational processes being utilized to analyze the biological data. Likewise supporting material, prepared by biologists, written for computer scientists will be developed so that a computer scientist can understand the basic biological processes being analyzed.