For more information on this course including syllabus, readings, lecture notes and homework assignments please follow this link .

Course Description

The goals of this course are to provide an understanding of the fundamental computational problems in molecular biology and a core set of widely used algorithms. This is the first of two courses on bioinformatics. The topics it will cover include: pairwise sequence alignment, multiple sequence alignment, finding genes in DNA sequences, phylogenetic tree construction, and genome mapping and sequencing. This is currently being taught as a special topics course in Computer Sciences. 3 credits

Prerequisites: CS 367 Introduction to Data Structures, or equivalent. Please note that this is a firm prerequisite. This course involves substantial programming, and students who have not had CS 367 or equivalent background are not adequately prepared.

Instructor: David Page
email: page @ biostat . wisc . edu
Office: 6743 Medical Sciences Center (corner of Charter and University)
Office Hours: Monday 3-4:00pm, Tuesday 2-3:00pm

TA: Beverly Seavey
email: seavey@biostat.wisc.edu
Office: 6750
Office Hours: Wednesday 11:15am-12:15pm, Thursday 1:30-2:30pm

Meeting Time and Location:
9:55-10:45 MWF
2305 Engineering Hall

Readings:
required text: Biological Sequence Analysis: Probabilistic Models of Proteins and Nucleic Acids. R. Durbin, S. Eddy, A. Krogh, and G. Mitchison. Cambridge University Press, 1998. other readings from the primary literature

Midterm Exam:
9:55-11:30am, October 20
2305 Engineering Hall

Final Exam:
2:45pm-4:45, December 21
Psychology 103

Course Director
Mark Craven, PhD, Associate Professor of Biostatistics & Medical Informatics and Computer Science
6730 Medical Sciences Center
1300 University Avenue
Madison, WI 53706-1510

Phone: 608-265-6181
Fax: 608-263-0415
E-mail:craven@biostat.wisc.edu