Teaching code

4S011601

Credits

9

Coordinator

Giovanni Malerba

Language

English

Courses Single

Not Authorized

Moodle Seminars 0

The teaching is organized as follows:

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.

Learning assessment procedures

Molecular Modeling and structural bioinformatics module: The exam consists of a written test containing open-ended questions on the concepts learned during theoretical lectures and a report on a structural bioinformatics project assigned to student groups.
Computational and functional genomics module: The exam consists of an oral test containing open-ended questions on the notions learned during theoretical lectures and a report on a computational genomics project assigned to student groups.

Evaluation criteria

In order to pass the exam, the student must demonstrate that he or she has fully achieved the predetermined educational objectives. The overall grade is the weighted average of the marks obtained in the two modules.
For the Molecular Modeling and structural bioinformatics module, will be specifically assessed: the ability to retrieve and interpret information of relevance to structural biology by consulting databases; the ability to solve structural bioinformatics problems with examples of biomedical relevance; and the ability to synthesize and expose a complete structural bioinformatics project on an assigned topic.
For the Computational and functional genomics module, the following will be specifically assessed: the ability to design studies for genetic factor analysis depending on the transmission pattern of the character; the ability to set up the appropriate pipelines of computational tools for the analysis of genomic and transcriptomic data on the large scale; the ability to combine the different computational tools together with the information retrievable from dababases for the integration and interpretation of the genetic data according to the associated character variability.