COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course will introduce the students to the many aspects of Systems and Computation Biology. The syllabus is based on a set of seminars given by all members of the department, with an emphasis on providing a broad view of their respective areas of research. Students will learn the state of the art in these research areas, from the basic concepts to the detailed methodologies, and how to critically think about designing experiments in these research areas. Selected topics include: introduction to probability, statistics and stochastic processes; modeling protein structure, dynamics and interactions; modeling the dynamics of gene regulatory networks and cell signaling networks; the computational simulations of cell movements; the microbial ecology of human health; the metabolic network models and analysis of -omics data; computational neuroscience; and the evolution of complex traits.

COURSE OBJECTIVES: The goals of the course are to give the students an introduction to the research areas in systems and computational biology. Students are expected to learn the basic concepts and detailed methodologies in these areas and how to use these methods to design experiments in systems and computational biology.

PREREQUISITES: None

REQUIRED MATERIALS: Laptop computer is required for classroom work

SUITABLE FOR 1ST YEAR STUDENTS: Yes

STUDENT ASSESSMENTS: Three submitted papers will be assessed by their corresponding lecturers. The lecturers will evaluate the quality of the papers and determine if the papers are acceptable based on their own criteria. Feedback and comments of the papers will be sent back to the students by the lecturers.

The final grade of a student is based on the feedback of the three written assignments from the lecturers.

CREDIT HOURS: 3.0