Academics
The bioinformatics subtrack offers a Graduate Certificate designed to serve Ph.D. students engaged in a wide diversity of Disciplinary Degree Programs. This program provides competency in fundamental biological sciences as well as computing, math, and statistics that are essential in pursuing a career, academic or otherwise, that depends on bioinformatic and/or computational analyses of biological information. The study of Bioinformatics in this Certificate program, when combined with your Ph.D. program in a primary discipline (e.g., biological sciences, computer science, biomedical or electrical engineering, molecular and/or cellular biology, etc.) provides training and experience in this emerging interdisciplinary area.
Students entering this program come from many diverse areas of science with grounding in engineering, the physical sciences, mathematics, or the biological/life sciences. Independent of prior degree and specialization, it is essential that students pursuing the Certificate in Informatics with an emphasis in bioinformatics and computational biology have an appropriate background in mathematics and statistics.
The Graduate Certificate in Bioinformatics is built on a flexible curriculum and includes the study of core and elective courses in the biological sciences, informatics, and bioinformatics which augment the coursework in a primary disciplinary Ph.D. Degree Program. Depending on the anticipated variable backgrounds of students and department-specific Degree Requirements, the Certificate in Informatics with an emphasis in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology may require as few as 18 s.h., or as many as 24 s.h.
Depending on the disciplinary orientation of the student, courses selected for the certificate should be made in consultation with the appropriate curricular committee. The core bioscience/informatics courses are those minimal set of bioscience/informatics courses that a student with a background in informatics/bioscience would need to be able to move forward in the field of bioinformatics.
The core courses for the Bioinformatics Certificate are:
22C:104 Introduction to Informatics
02:128 Fundamental Genetics
02:170 Introduction to Bioinformatics
051:123 Bioinformatics Tools and Techniques
The required electives are taken from pools of courses that serve as complements to the basic background from the informatics, biological sciences and bioinformatics areas. At least 3 s.h. are required from each of the three areas.
Informatics: One approved informatics elective in the area of data bases, data/text mining, algorithms, software engineering, statistics, mathematical modeling, biostatistics, etc. Any course from part c of Foundations of Informatics
Foundations of Informatics (9 s.h.): Students must complete 3 s.h. in each of areas I, II, and III below.
I. Introductory Informatics Coursework (3 s.h.)
22C:104 (Introduction to Informatics)
II.Programming Coursework (3 s.h.), either:
22C:109 (Programming Languages and Tools)
051:123 (Bioinformatics Techniques)
III.Data Handling Coursework (3 s.h.), either:
06K:233/21:230 (Text Retrieval)
06K:272 (Advanced Database Analysis)
06K:275 (Knowledge Discovery)
21:124 (Database Systems)
22C:144 (Database Systems)
22C:244 (Database System Implementation)
171:161 (Introduction to Biostatistics)
185:274 (Theory of Statistical Genetics)
22S:130 (Intro to Math Stat I)
22S:131 (Intro to Math Stat II)
22S:152 (Applied Linear Regression)
22S:153 (Math Stat I)
22S:154 (Math Stat II)
22S:164 (Applied Statistics)
22S:166 (Computing in Statistics)
OR
22C:131 Limits of Computation2
2C:145 Artificial Intelligence
22C:174 Optimization Techniques
22C:177 Parallel & High Performance Algorithms in Scientific Computing
22C:180 Fundamentals of Software Engineering
22C:181 Formal Methods in Software Engineering
22C:182 Software Engineering Language
22C:196 Topics in CS: Introduction to Data Mining & Knowledge Discovery
22C:231 Design and Analysis of Algorithms
22C:253 Algorithms in Discrete Optimization
22S:120 Probability and Statistics
06K:278 Web Mining
Biological sciences: One approved biological sciences elective in the area of cellular/molecular biology, evolution, population genetics, molecular phylogenetics, genetics model systems, etc..
002:131 Evolution
002:160 Molecular Phylogenetics
002:162 Population Genetics and Molecular Evolution
127:150 Genetic Analysis of Biological Systems
156:201 Principles in Molecular and Cell Biology
Bioinformatics: One approved bioinformatics oriented elective course
051:122, Computational Genomics
002:176 Statistics in Bioinformatics
185:278 Computing Algorithms in Stat Genetics
Admissions decisions are made based on the following requirements:
- Good academic standing in an existing University of Iowa graduate program
- A cover letter
- A plan of study specifying a list of courses satisfying the certificate – with grades for completed courses.