Computational Biology and Bioinformatics (CBB) is a rapidly developing multidisciplinary field.

The systematic acquisition of data made possible by genomics and

proteomics technologies has created a tremendous gap between available data and
their biological interpretation. Given the rate of data generation, it is well
recognized that this gap will not be closed with direct individual experimentation.
Computational and theoretical approaches to understanding biological systems
provide an essential vehicle to help close this gap. These activities include
computational modeling of biological processes, computational management of
large-scale projects, database development and data-mining, algorithm
development and high-performance computing, as well as statistical and
mathematical analyses.

The mission of the Georgia Tech Bioinformatics Graduate Program is to educate and prepare students to
reach the forefront of leadership in the fields of bioinformatics and computational biology, and to
integrate research and education on the use of information technologies in biology and medicine. The
program includes an interdisciplinary doctoral (PhD) program spanning variety of academic departments
at Georgia Tech and a Professional Science Masters (MS) program that prepares students for careers in
Bioinformatics.

Bioinformatics Program Research Areas

1. 1.Algorithm & s/w develpement
2. Human clinical & personalized genomics
3. Microbial genomics
4. Metagenomics
5. Cancer genomics
6. Epigenomics
7. Systems biology
8. Molecular evaolutio
9. Synthetic biology
10.Structural biology
11.High performance computing & big data
12.Drug discovery & developement

Recommended Electives for the MS Bioinformatics Degree

Suggested Elective Courses for students interested in:
Genomics:

BIOL 8802 Microbial Genomics (2 hrs)

BIOL 4608/6608 Prokaryotic Molecular Genetics (3 hrs)

BIOL 4668/7668 Eukaryotic Molecular Genetics (3 hrs)

BIOL 4015/8803 Cancer Biology (3 hrs)

Biol 4803 Human Genetics (3 hrs)

CHEM 6572 Macromolecular Structures (3 hrs)

Biol 8802 Experimental Genomics (2 hrs)

Biol 8901/8902 Special Problems (research for credit, variable hrs)

Structural biology:

BIOL 4478 Biophysics (3 hrs)

BIOL 7110 Macromolecular Modeling (4hrs; pre-req: Chem 6572)

BIOL 8802 Computational Systems Biology (2 hrs)

Biol 8802 Drug Discovery (2 hrs)

CHEM 6572 Macromolecular Structures (3 hrs)

CHEM 4765 Drug Design, Development and Delivery (3 hrs)

CHEM 6501 Biochemistry I (3 hrs)

CHEM 6573 Molecular Biochemistry (3 hrs)

Biol 8901/8902 Special Problems (research for credit, variable hrs)

Computational biology:

BIOL 4755 Mathematical Biology (3 hrs)

BIOL 6422 Theoretical Ecology (3 hrs)

BIOL 4401 Experimental Design and Statistical Methods (3 hrs)

MATH 3012 Applied Combinatorics (3 hrs)

MATH 6014 Graph Theory (3 hrs)

MATH 6266 Linear Statistical Models (3 hrs)

MATH 6262 Statistical Estimation (3 hrs)

MATH 6267 Multivariate Statistical Analysis (3 hrs)

Biol 8901/8902 Special Problems (research for credit, variable hrs)

This is not a comprehensive list. New courses are offered from time to time that may be highly
relevant to any of these areas. Students should consult with the program director or faculty
research adviser regarding suitable electives.
http://bioinformatics.gatech.edu/recommended-electives-ms-bioinformatics-degree

This website lists opportunities from the larger Co-op/Internship and Summer Research
Opportunities in the Life Sciences website that offer experience in bioinformatics, genomics,
computational biology or proteonomics

Job prospects
Bioinformatics graduates are well-prepared for interdisciplinary careers in academics, industry
and government. Recent graduates with a master's degree in bioinformatics enjoy starting
salaries of $65,000 and higher. In comparison, a graduate with a typical B.S. degree earns an
average annual salary of $33,000, and a graduate with an M.S. in Biology typically earns
$48,000.
http://www.csbc.vcu.edu/bioinformatics-programs/graduate/

Examples of Biomedical Informatics Research and

Applications
A thorough review of biomedical informatics accomplishments is outside the scope of this
introduction. In Tables 1 to 4 we provide a brief summary of the areas where biomedical
informatics has been successfully applied to solve important problems. Table 5 summarizes
important open problems in the field.
Table 1: Research and Applications Examples In Medical Discovery
1. Literature Storage and Retrieval:

MEDLINE, PubMed, Grateful Med (National Library of Medicine)

Roundsman, Thomas (Patient-specific application of published CTs)

Pre-Trieve (Proactive utility-based retrieval)

FastPro (Meta-analysis of Clinical Trials)

2. Machine Learning, Data Mining and Automated Discovery:

o

Prognosis of adverse patient outcomes

Creation of clinical guidelines

Elicitation of disease causes

Identification of redundant diagnostic tests

Improvement of clinical processes

Diagnosis

3. Bioinformatics
o

Sequence databases (EMBL, GenBank, EBI, SWISS-PROT, PROSITE,

NCBI Entrez)

Sequence Similarity Systems (BLAST, BLITZ ULTRA, BioSCAN,

GenQuest)

Alignment systems (AMAS, DALI)

Phylogeny systems (PHYLIP, ClustalW)

Gene, Structure, Function prediction systems (NNSSP, SSPRED,

GeneQuiz, GRAIL, GENEMARK)

Table 2: Research and Applications In Health Professional Education

1. Computer-Aided Instruction: Virtual Patient Project
2. Imaging for Education: Visible Human Project
3. Intelligent Textbooks: NLM Hepatitis KB project; Quick Medical Reference

Table 3: Research and Applications In Clinical Practice

1. Integrated Hospital Information Systems: PROMIS, HELP, Regenstrief Systems

2. Computerized Patient-Order Entry: Brigham & Women's, WizOrder Systems
3. Computerized Patient Record: COSTAR, TMR, MARS/STARCHART System
4. Telemedicine: interpretation of images in radiology, patient-provider and
provider-provider tele-consultation, patient monitoring and education
5. Medical Expert Systems: MYCIN, INTERNIST/QMR, Dxplain, ILIAD
6. Formal Medical Decision Making (e.g., Tufts-NEMC Medical Decision Making
Laboratory)
7. Support for Evidence-Based Practice
8. Integration of interdisciplinary care: PathworX

Table 4: Research and Applications In Health Care Organization

1. Universal Vaccination Introduction Studies
2. Allocation of Limited Resources Among Competing Prevention Programs
3. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)
4. International Society for the Systems Sciences (ISSS)
5. Major organizational related bibliography
6. Informatics and organizations-a bibliography

Table 5: Open Problems in Biomedical Informatics Research

1. Integration of decision-support systems in clinical practice
2. Efficient normative decision-support systems
3. Efficient & secure transfer, storage & retrieval of clinical data
4. Large-scale, confidential sharing of patient information for research
5. Natural-language understanding and processing of the patient record
6. Structure and function of the human genome
7. Integration of bioinformatics with clinical research

8. Efficient collection and conceptual mapping of clinical narrative data

9. Medical vocabulary standardization
10.Integrated computerized patient record
11.Analysis of clinical information needs
12.Cognitive psychology of medical reasoning
13.Methods for representing & storing medical information (including text,
numerical data, images, signals, higher-level knowledge, and user-interfaces)
14.Integrating disparate institutional systems to provide optimal care
15.Developing scalable & sustainable information architectures
16.Human-Centered Systems challenges (Interdisciplinary research in human
and distributed cognition applied to environments, Knowledge repositories for
information access, management, and applications, Information agents for
collecting and processing data, and Multimodal interactions between humans
and computer systems)
http://www.mc.vanderbilt.edu/dbmi/bmigradprog/examples.html

Graduates Career Paths

The program will enhance and facilitate the following intended informatics-related career paths:
M.D.s, R.N.s, DDS, PhD in health-related area (e.g., psychology):

Full-time Academic Researcher

Part-time Academic Researcher/ Part-time Clinician

Scientific Manager in industry

Advanced Scientist in industry

Information manager in Health Care setting

Consultant or Enterpreneur

Non - Health professionals:

Full-time Academic Researcher

Scientific manager in industry

Advanced scientist in industry

Information manager in Health Care setting

Consultant or Enterpreneur

Anticipated job descriptions corresponding to the various PhD Concentration Areas are:
1. Clinical Systems Concentration Area--designs, develops, evaluates, and supervises user
training of clinical information systems
2. Decision-Support Systems & Healthcare Decision Sciences Concentration Area-designs, develops, evaluates intelligent decision support tools and decision
models/guidelines/policies
3. Evidence-Based-Practice Concentration Area -- uses, designs, develops, evaluates
systems for optimal literature retrieval, and application.
4. Health Policy, Management, and Administration Concentration Area--uses, designs,
develops, manages and evaluates systems for optimal information application and
resource optimization at the basic research, clinical, and organizational domains.
5. Bioinformatics for Molecular Medicine Concentration Area --uses and designs new
algorithms and/or software for medical bioinformatics applications and research.
6. Clinical Bioinformatics Concentration Area -- designs/executes/evaluates
studies/systems for linking molecular biology to disease diagnosis, prevention
and treatment.
Candidate Student Profiles

Given the interdisciplinary nature of biomedical informatics, training of students must

accommodate individuals whose initial background comes from any one of the field's component
sciences. This is essential for producing graduates with training, knowledge, interests and
experience that cover the full spectrum of biomedical informatics. Thus, the expected students
will have prior training and potential professional or research experience in any one or more of
the following: health sciences (e.g., medicine, nursing, dentistry, epidemiology, etc), computer
science, information and library science, biology, applied mathematics/biostatistics, and/or
economics/management.
Examples of typical expected candidates are:

- M.D.s pursuing a clinical research career, or pursuing a basic research career.

- R.N.s pursuing an academic, consulting, or management career.
- Computer science graduates with a special interest in biomedical research.
- Biostatisticians with an interest in bioinformatics or clinical research.
- Biologists with an interest in computation/bioinformatics, and health care.

Student-specific Curriculum Templates

We present here curriculum templates for students coming with a medical or Computer Science
background and pursuing M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in the Clinical Information Systems Area.

Background
(major)

Targeted
Biomedical
Informatics
Degree

Concentration
Area

Biology

M.S.

N/A

Ph.D.

Bioinformatics for
Molecular
MedicineFocus/No
n-Thesis M.S.

Ph.D.

Clinical
Bioinformatics
Focus/Non-thesis
M.S.

Biostatistics

Ph.D.

Bioinformatics for
Molecular
MedicineFocus/NonThesis M.S.

Biostatistics

Ph.D.

Clinical Systems
Focus

Biostatistics

M.D.

N/A

Computer
Science

M.S.

N/A

Biology

Biostatistics

Sample
Curriculum

Computer
Science

Ph.D.

Bioinformatics for
Molecular
MedicineFocus/No
n-Thesis M.S.

Computer
Science

Ph.D.

Clinical Systems
Focus

Computer
Science

Ph.D.

Decision Support
Systmes Focus

Information/Libra
ry Science

M.S.

N/A

Information/Libra
ry Science

Ph.D.

Clinical Systems
Focus

Medicine

M.S.

N/A

Medicine

Ph.D.

Clinical Systems
Focus

Medicine

Ph.D.

Clinical
Bioinformatics
Focus/Non-thesis
M.S.

Medicine

Ph.D.

Clinical Systmes
Focus

Medicine

Ph.D.

Decision-Support
Systems Focus

Nursing

M.S.

N/A

http://www.mc.vanderbilt.edu/dbmi/bmigradprog/admissions.html#paths

ocus Area: Computer Science/Mathematical Sciences

BCB 511
Applied Bioinformatics
CS 511
Parallell Programming
CS 512
Parallel Algorithms
CS 570
Artificial Intelligence
CS 572
Evolutionary Computation
CS 576
Data Mining Topics and Techniques
Math 451
Probability Theory
Math 452
Mathematical Statistics
Math 538
Stochastic Models
Math 428
Numerical Methods
Phys 533
Statistical Thermodynamics
Stat 519
Multivariate Analysis
Stat 565
Computer Intensive Methods

3 credits
3 credits
3 credits
3 credits
3 credits
3 credits
3 credits
3 credits
3 credits
3 credits
3 credits
3 credits
3 credits

Focus Area: Biological Sciences

Biol 421
Advanced Evolution/Population Dynamics
Biol 444
Genomics
Biol 545
Principles of Systematic Biology
Biol 547
Virology
Biol 548
Evolutionary Ecology
Biol 562
Molecular Parasitology
Biol 585
Prokaryotic Molecular Biology
Biol 587
Eukaryotic Molecular Biology
MMBB 541
Biochemistry
MMBB 588
Genetic Engineering (PlSc 588)

3 credits
3 credits
3 credits
3 credits
3 credits
3 credits
3 credits
3 credits
3 credits
3 credits

What is the difference between Bioinformatics and

Computational Biology?
Our department considers bioinformatics and computational biology to be essentially
synonymous, but some people make a distinction between two flavors of bioinformatics: tool and
method development (bioinformatics) and applying existing tools to new biological questions

(computational biology). There is a good defense of this distinction by Russ Altman. You can do
either style of bioinformatics at UCSC, but we feel that the best work results from people who do
both: developing new methods and applying them to new biological questions. One interesting
thing about bioinformatics is that the fundamental work that opens up new fields is usually
"engineering", while the application of the tools is "science". This paradigm of engineeringpreceding-science is actually quite common, but clashes with the popular meme that science
precedes engineering.

What can I do with a Bioinformatics degree?

You can work at the interface between biochemistry, computer science, and mathematics,
creating new solutions for high-throughput chemistry, designing analysis systems for drug
design, and many other things. Our graduates in bioinformatics have not had any difficulty
finding jobs. Our Ph.D. students have been sought for faculty positions. Take a look at our grad
alumni page to see who has finished.
https://bme.soe.ucsc.edu/faq