Pre-Bioinformatics

A student can prepare for admission to and success in a graduate program in Bioinformatics by selecting specified courses in Biology, Chemistry, Mathematics and Computer Science, leading to either a major in Biology or a major in Computer science.

Bioinformatics is a hybrid field at the interface of biology and computer science. The focus in bioinformatics is to develop programs capable of maintaining and analyzing vast amounts of genetic information. For instance, most of the human genome has been sequenced. This information consists of about 3 billion base pairs of DNA. The sequence of the genome is quite "raw" data. We need to identify what parts of the genome are actually used to make proteins. We also seek to understand the function of all these genes.

Bioinformatics is used to maintain this information and annotate the sequence, identifying what is known about different sequences and how they function, and also trying to establish the similarities to the genomes of other organisms. As we progress, bioinformatics will likely evolve into other areas and will seek to keep track of other types of information related to the genome.