Are you interested in biology, but don't know much about it? Would you like to know how biologists use software to answer deep biological questions? Would you like to learn how to design algorithms, but don't know how to program? Do you like to program, and would you have fun designing programs that can analyze DNA sequences and discover interesting things?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, this course may be just for you! This course will introduce you to the modern world of bioinformatics, covering not only basic biology (in a very easy way, don't worry!), but also how to design algorithms, what it means for a problem to be "NP-hard" and how to deal with that, and how biologists put all these things together to make powerful software that can shed light on fundamental problems. If you know how to program (for example, if you've already taken the Elements courses that are pre-requisite to this course), you'll be able to apply that skill to some interesting problems. If you don't know how to program, you can still take the course! I'm organizing this so that everyone who's interested in this area will have a blast. Feel free to contact me if you have questions! I read email regularly.
The grading scheme is:
Textbook: An introduction to Bioinformatics Algorithms, by Neil C. Jones and Pavel A. Pevzner, MIT Press.
Downloadable stuff, including schedule of topics and quizzes, powerpoint slides and pdf files of the my presentations, and the homework assignments (in pdf).
Preparation for the final exam.