About the Course

Introduction

With the fast-growing influx of experimental data attributed to different branches of natural sciences, contemporary ‘science and technologies’ have an unmistakable inclination towards knowledge-based training and learning. It is but natural that with the rate and nature of changes in needs and demands of the modern human world, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and robotics are setting new ‘state-of-the-art’ in many challenging real-world problems and thereby taking over manual efforts at many hierarchies of natural and social sciences. The faculty of modern biology is no exception in this trend wherein research and development in many present problems heavily relies on the active intervention of knowledge-based advanced learning coupled with fast computations in the given premise of a biological problem. ‘Bioinformatics and Computational Biology’ gives exclusive coverage of topics and problems spanning from 1D sequences to 3D structures, from molecular evolution to ecological modeling, from protein folding to non-canonical base-pairing in RNAs, from protein design to the design of biotherapeutics, from next-generation sequencing to personalized medicines and so on. The current course presents a unique opportunity for inquisitive and enthusiastic BSc students to learn and apply Bioinformatics and Computational Biology. The proposed course provides foundation knowledge and understanding of the very fundamentals of the subject while also adequately covering many of its relevant advanced endeavors. The course, open to a wide spectrum of disciplines (not alone restricted to students of biological science faculties), includes necessary recapitulation to commence from a common conceptual platform for all participants. The course structure is designed to present a ‘broad overview of briefings’ in contemporary bioinformatics and computational biology. While a collection of compulsory basic topics (sections) is integral to the core-course structure, the course (six months, 96 hours) offers peripheral flexibility in the choice of its advanced topics (sections). Each participant (student) needs to select two optional sections (out of 4 choices) in addition to 10 compulsory sections. Each section has 6 hrs. The course intends to offer enjoyable interactive classroom participation and direct first-hand experience in all practical attributes of Bioinformatics such as developing algorithms and coding for them. To the very best of our knowledge and belief, we believe that the certificate attained upon successful completion of the course would be of value to a participant in his/her academic persuasion both in terms of learning and career development.

Eligibility of students: Those who are undergoing B.Sc with honors in any of the following subjects: Biochemistry, Microbiology, Botany, Zoology, Fisheries / Statistics, Electronics, Mathematics, Computer Science or similar.

developed by
Dr. Sankar Chandra Basu
Assistant Professor,
Asutosh College (affiliated to University of Calcutta)
Department of Microbiology
&
External Scientific Collaborator (Computational Biophysics) at 3BIO, ULB, Brussels, Belgium
Homepage: www.scinetmol.in,
Email: nemo8130@gmail.com, sankarchandra.basu@asutoshcollege.in