Advanced Sequence Analysis in Bioinformatics

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Next Offering

Fall 2002. Eight meetings on Monday evenings, 6-9 pm, Cupertino, starting September 16. Enrollment is open. Visit UCSC extension web site .

Course Description

Large-scale sequencing efforts are producing enormous amounts of data. Computational methods are essential for "mining" this data to glean biological insights from it. This advanced course covers cutting-edge methods that are more sophisticated and powerful than the simple methods commonly used for pairwise alignment, multiple alignment, and phylogenetic tree construction. Topics covered include Hidden Markov Models for pairwise alignment, for multiple alignment, for gene finding, and for conducting profile-based searches; probabilistic methods for phylogenetic analysis; stochastic context-free grammars for RNA analysis; and methods for conducting ultra-fast database searches. With an emphasis on in-depth computational methods and algorithms, this course is geared towards the developer. Interested non-developers are welcome too!

Text

The required text is Biological Sequence Analysis: Probabilistic Models of Proteins and Nucleic Acids , R. Durbin et al, Cambridge University Press.

Prerequisites

Familiarity with vector and matrix notation, as acquired from a course in matrix or linear algebra. Computational maturity, as acquired from a first course in computer science. Some familiarity with DNA and protein sequences. Familiarity with probability and statistics basics, as acquired from the course Data analysis, modeling, and visualization for bioinformatics.