2013-2014 Academic Catalog

May 01, 2024

2013-2014 Academic Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

BINF 100 - Decoding the Mystery of Life

The successful completion of the Human Genome Project in June 2000 marked an astonishing moment of human history: the first time in the story of life on earth that a species has read its own recipe. But this book of secret code remains largely a mystery to us. Hidden with it lies tens of thousands of genes and millions of other sequences that constitute a treasure trove of secrets of life. It provides not only information for the cure of diseases, but also secret messages from the distant and recent past – from when we were single-celled creatures and from when we took up cultural habits. In this course students will study the mathematical models and the computational tasks involved in the sequencing of human genome, such as the shot-gun method and the sequence assembly problem. They will study how to compare DNA or Protein sequences to find disease genes, how to search for similar sequences to gain insight into the structure and functions of gene sequences, and how to recognize and find genes. Various computer models and algorithms to reconstruct our past, the evolutionary tree, based on the DNA sequences will also be introduced. Along the way discrete mathematical models (trees and graphs) and probabilistic concepts will be introduced, and a simple computer language will be employed to perform string searching and comparison. Many bioinformatics tools and web resources will be utilized for problem solving. Students will do projects suitable to their background and interest, and will be evaluated accordingly. No computer programming skill is required, and the only math prerequisite is some mathematical maturity on the precalculus level. Computer algorithms and mathematical concepts will be introduced gradually throughout the course, in connection with solutions of biological problems. Fulfills the Formal Analysis requirement. First-Year Seminar