Achievement

IGERT trainees Jignesh Parikh and Josh Campbell co-taught BF527 (Applications in Bioinformatics) during the 2011 fall semester. The course is an introduction to Bioinformatics for students outside of our Bioinformatics Ph.D. Program and consisted of 1-hour lectures and 1-hour labs held biweekly. Lectures focused on the major molecular biology data types analyzed by bioinformaticians (sequences, structures, etc.) along with the theory and tools that have been developed to study them. Labs focused on acquiring hands-on experience with important Bioinformatics tools and databases while simultaneously developing Python programming skills. Students were evaluated through lab activities, homework assignments, a midterm exam, and a final project. The final project required students to select a paper with supplementary data, perform 3 additional analyses on that data, and present their findings. Online polling of students revealed unanimous enthusiasm for the course and its instructors.