Learning objectives

The course aims to provide to students the basics of bioinformatics for structural biology and computational genomics applied to relevant biomedical problems. By integrating lecture hours with computer lab exercises, it also provides the operational tools to apply the acquired knowledge in specific areas of personalized medicine.
The course is structured in two distinct modules:
- the Molecular Modeling and structural bioinformatics module illustrates bioinformatics tools to support structural biology. It enables the student to understand and use the information contained in databases of interest to structural biology to build models of biological macromolecules and their complexes. It provides the basics of computational modeling for the study and prediction of protein- protein and protein-ligand complexes, and of molecular simulation techniques, with examples of analysis of biomolecular systems under pathological conditions.
- the Computational and functional genomics module provides the knowledge to be able to use computational procedures to study Mendelian and complex models by analysis and inference of relationships between different genetic factors using genomic and large-scale data, including methods for integrating gene expression and other data. It also provides key skills for managing "big data" in the genomics era.
Upon completion of the course, the student will have acquired:
a) thorough knowledge of structural bioinformatics techniques for in silico study of the structure and interaction between biomolecules under normal and pathological conditions;
b) applied knowledge of databases and algorithms for the prediction of protein-ligand and protein-protein complexes;
c) thorough knowledge of advanced computational techniques for the analysis of genetic big-data in the context of genomics and transcriptomics;
d) ability to deal with studies of genetic factor association and linkage with Mendelian diseases and complex diseases.