Bioinformatics
Recommended courses for University of Maryland undergraduates majoring in Biological Sciences who are interested in bioinformatics.
1) First Year – MATH 140/141
Math 140/141 is the key prerequisite for all CMSC courses
related to bioinformatics, Math 220/221 is not considered to be an
acceptable alternative.
2) Programming and algorithms: a suggested sequence.
Students with a serious interest in bioinformatics will want to
learn computer programming and algorithms. The following sequence of
CMSC courses is recommended as a guide. It is unlikely that a student
majoring in the Biological Sciences would have room in their program to
take all of these courses. However, much of the material presented in
these courses is available elsewhere and need not come from courses
taken at College Park.
a) CMSC 106: Introduction to C programming
An introduction to programming and programming concepts using C.b) CMSC 131 and 132: Object-oriented programming
Program design and testing; problem solutions, application programming interfaces, JAVA.c) CMSC 212: Introduction to low-level programming concepts
d) CMSC 250: Discrete structures
Mathematical concepts related to computer science.e) CMSC 351: Algorithms
f) CMSC 423: Bioinformatic Algorithms, Databases, and Tools
This is the only course that directly covers bioinformatics. The other six courses are prerequisites to it. Those prerequisites may be waived for Biology majors with some knowledge of programming. Your advisor can approve use of CMSC 423 as an enrichment course under the advanced program in the biological sciences.
3) Relevant courses within the biological sciences.
The following courses are especially relevant. However,
different students will have different interests within bioinformatics
and computational biology. BSCI 380 should be taken by all students with an interest in bioinformatics.
a) BSCI 380: Comparative Bioinformatics
Bioinformatics. Sequence analysis, genomics, sequence alignment, phylogenetic methods, pattern recognition and functional inference.b) Molecular Genetics and Genomics courses
BSCI 410: Molecular Genetics,
BSCI 411: Plant Genetics & Molecular Biology
BSCI 412: Microbial Genetics, or
BSCI 416: Human Genome.c) BSCI 471: Molecular Evolution
Patterns of DNA sequence variation within and between species.
4) Statistics.
One course in statistics is strongly recommended. STAT 420 would
be ideal, but any course with significant statistical content should
provide the essential concepts.
For more information contact the CBMG undergraduate office (x5-2766/1225 H.J. Patterson).