Type of course

Admission requirements

Applicants from Nordic countries: Generell studiekompetanse + Matematikk R1 eller (S1+S2) og enten Matematikk (R1+R2) eller Fysikk (1+2) eller Kjemi (1+2) eller Biologi (1+2) eller Informasjonsteknologi( 1+2) eller Geologi (1+2) eller Teknologi og forskningslære (1+2).

International applicants: Higher Education Entrance Qualification and certified language requirements in English. It is a requirement that students have  some prior knowledge of biology and ecology, chemistry and mathematics (Participants must have taken introductory level university courses, and achieved pass grades, in these subjects).

A list of the requirements for the Higher Education Entrance Qualification in Norway can be found on the Norwegian Agency for Quality Assurance in Education website - nokut.no

Application code: 9336 (Nordic applicants).

Course content

Objectives of the course

Knowledge:

The candidate

Background basics: •

• has basic knowledge about DNA and RNA structure, the central dogma, gene structure and control, and the tree of life and evolution.
• •has basic knowledge about primary and secondary protein structure, and implications for bioinformatics. •
• has insights into structure of databases, types of databases, and data quality.

Sequence alignments: •

• knows the principals of sequence alignments.
• •has knowledge about pairwise sequence alignments and database searching. •
• has knowledge about patterns, profiles and multiple sequence alignments.

Evolutionary processes:

• •has knowledge into basic principles of structure and interpretation of phylogenetic trees •
• has knowledge about how to reconstruct phylogenetic trees

Genome characteristics: •

• has knowledge about general genome features. •
• knows how to predict genes, splice sites, promoters.
• •has knowledge into algorithms for detecting genes, introns/exons.

Secondary structures: •

• has knowledge about how to obtain structure information from primary sequence.

Tertiary structures: •

• knows the most important techniques for determination of protein structure modelling. •
• knows how to analyse structure-function relationships.

Cells and organisms: •

• has knowledge about how to analyse proteome and transcriptome data.
• •has knowledge about clustering methods. •
• has knowledge about systems biology.

Skills:

The candidate  

• can describe the properties of DNA and RNA.
• can explain the central dogma, and is able to outline structures and types of databases.
• •can score alignments, use search tools, reflect on substitution matrices, profiles and hidden Markov models. •
• can carry out phylogenetic analyses and interpret the results.
• •is able to recognize typical gene features. •
• can predict and assess secondary structures from sequence. •
• can outline sequencing and expression profiling techniques. •
• can present academic material

General competence:

The candidate •

• understands the relation between DNA, RNA and protein, and can use this information to discuss their function. •
• can participate in discussions concerning bioinformatics with others. •
• has the ability to plan and execute basic bioinformatics tasks; aligning and handling sequences, database searching, phylogenetic analysis, and basic annotation.
• •can interpret and communicate scientific material on bioinformatics.

Language of instruction and examination

Teaching methods

Assessment

Recommended reading/syllabus