This short course will focus on several different ways that the analysis
of
molecular data is being applied to solv
e current biological problems
in
areas such as medicine, agriculture, conservation, and evolution. The
relationships between evolutionary theory and the analysis of molecular
sequence and structure data will be addressed. A wide range of
sub-disciplines that use bioinformatic analysis will be drawn upon. The
focus will be on learning about the causal bases for bioinformatic analyses
along with a philosophy of education: problem posing, problem-solving, and peer review/publication (BioQUEST's
three P's ).
The laboratory sessions deal with medical, cell
biology, and conservation examples. The lectures relate to: Evolutionary
Bioinformatics: Orthology,
Paralogy, Xenology, Phylogenetic Probes and Phylogenetic Profiling;
BioQUEST's Curricular Philosophy: Problem Posing, Problem Solving and
Peer
Review / Publication; and, Theoretical, mathematical and computational
aspects that complicate bioinformatics: homoplasies, computational
complexity, numerous tree topologies, scoring multiple sequence alignments,
long branch attraction problems, rate variations. The discussions focus
on
how to analyze data, how to implement bioinformatics investigations across
the curriculum, and how to develop sustained collaboration. For more details,
visit the BEDROCK home page and follow
the Workshops link to explore recent workshops.
The workshop is designed for:
- biologists and chemists
interested in incorporating bioinformatics
into their curricula, and who enjoy collaborative learning such as
has been developed and diffused by the BioQUEST Curriculum Consortium.
- mathematicians and computer scientists
curious about how their fields impact bioinformatics or computational molecular biology. We encourage you to come and interact with biologists to develop a better idea of the various questions that arise with respect to teaching and learning elements of bioinformatics.
This short course serves several purposes:
|
As a learning resource for faculty across the
sciences who are interested in developing their understanding
of the biological, computational mathematical aspects of bioinformatic
analyses. |
As a forum for undergraduate educators to collaborate
in the development of courses and/or curricula that incorporate
bioinformatics. |
As an opportunity for developing undergraduate
research programs in bioinformatics. |
Sponsored
by a grant from the National Science Foundation (DUE/CCLI-ND)
and
|