The University of Malta will be launching an M.Sc. in Bioinformatics in October 2019.
Computer Systems have become ubiquitous in the analysis of data to further increase our knowledge in a particular domain. Molecular biology is no exception to this. More so, the amount of data generated in this area has increased exponentially in recent years (e.g. DNA sequences or protein structures), and we are required to design and implement new computer algorithms to handle all this data.
This M.Sc. programme of studies focuses on bioinformatics, the study of all the computational aspects of molecular biology data. Bioinformatics offers essential tools to wet laboratory scientists. This interdisciplinary programme equips the student with the computational, molecular biology and statistical knowledge required to build and run the computational tools which underpin novel discoveries in molecular biology.
This programme is of main interest to different student profiles; e.g. the computer scientist who knows the computational techniques (e.g. programming) but knows little on the molecular biology side of things, or the molecular biologist (e.g. geneticist) who knows the molecular biology, but lacks the computational skills. Students from other scientific, statistical or mathematical backgrounds, but with a strong interest in interdisciplinary study are encouraged to apply. Some of the key areas presented during this course are:
- fundamentals of molecular biology
- genomics and transcriptomics
- genome sequencing, alignment and variant calling
- gene function prediction and annotation
- structural bioinformatics (including protein structure prediction)
- network analysis (gene regulatory networks, protein interaction networks, metabolic networks, signalling networks etc.)
- systems biology
- computational drug design
- biomedical imaging
- visualisation of molecular biology data
- software development principles (including programming and database systems)
- statistical techniques used to validate bioinformatics methods
- ethical implications in the field
- use of bioinformatics tools and databases, and
- research design.
The course is delivered on both full-time (3 semesters) and part-time (5 semesters) basis.
Application deadline: 25 July, 14:00 (Local time)