Introduction to Bioinformatics, March 2009

Bioinformatics meets microbiology in many areas, including medicine,
public health, agriculture and biodiversity. This introductory online
course from The University of Manchester, UK, will be useful for
microbiologists working in a wide range of different areas.

Our distance courses are delivered in a Virtual Learning Environment,
which allows us to extend the classroom into the web. We use a range of
tools to support our online teaching activities.

Each course, which is paced to suit those in full-time employment, runs
over 16 teaching weeks.

Teaching and learning are focussed around tutor-supported exercises. In
this course, participants work together on the interpretation of their
results, before receiving feedback from the course tutor. Participants
who wish to be assessed for credits at Masters level should complete
additional independent research for assessment

Week 1 Introduction to distance learning
Bioinformatics as a knowledge-based discipline

Weeks 2 and 3 Introduction to the sequence databases
Quality, redundancy and annotation
Sequence retrieval exercise and group discussion

Weeks 4 and 5 Nucleic acid sequence analysis

Weeks 6 and 7 Independent research and assessment

Weeks 8 and 9 Sequence alignment and database search
1. use of BLAST and FASTA, choosing suitable options;
2. interpretation of the results.

Weeks 10 and 11 Protein function prediction.

Weeks 12 and 13 Protein structure prediction
Practical exercise and group discussion

Weeks 14 to 16 Independent research and work on the second assessment


You will find information on all our courses, including fees and a link
to the online application form, here :
[Only registered users see links. ] If you have any
questions, or need advice on the module options, please contact
[Only registered users see links. ]