636-0704-00L  Computational Biology and Bioinformatics Seminar

SemesterHerbstsemester 2018
DozierendeN. Beerenwinkel, M. Claassen, D. Iber, T. Stadler, J. Stelling
Periodizitätjedes Semester wiederkehrende Veranstaltung
LehrspracheEnglisch
KommentarThe Seminar will be offered in autumn semester in Basel and in spring semester in Zürich.


KurzbeschreibungComputational Biology und Bioinformatik analysieren lebende Systeme mit Methoden der Informatik. Das Seminar kombiniert Präsentationen von Studierenden und Forschenden, um das sich schnell entwickelnde Gebiet aus der Informatikperspektive zu skizzieren. Themenbereiche sind Sequenzanalyse, Proteomics, Optimierung und Bio-inspired computing, Systemmodellierung, -simulation und -analyse.
LernzielStudying and presenting fundamental papers of Computational Biology and Bioinformatics. Learning how to make a scientific presentation and how classical methods are used or further developed in current research.
InhaltComputational biology and bioinformatics aim at advancing the understanding of living systems through computation. The complexity of these systems, however, provides challenges for software and algorithms, and often requires entirely novel approaches in computer science. The aim of the seminar is to give an overview of this rapidly developing field from a computer science perspective. In particular, it will focus on the areas of (i) DNA sequence analysis, sequence comparison and reconstruction of phylogenetic trees, (ii) protein identification from experimental data, (iii) optimization and bio-inspired computing, and (iv) systems analysis of complex biological networks. The seminar combines the discussion of selected research papers with a major impact in their domain by the students with the presentation of current active research projects / open challenges in computational biology and bioinformatics by the lecturers. Each week, the seminar will focus on a different topic related to ongoing research projects at ETHZ, University of Basel and University of Zurich, thus giving the students the opportunity of obtaining knowledge about the basic research approaches and problems as well as of gaining insight into (and getting excited about) the latest developments in the field.
LiteraturOriginal papers to be presented by the students will be provided in the first week of the seminar.