Bioinformatics

Academic Director: Kalle M. Levon
Program Manager: Mgavi E.Brathwaite

Bioinformatics is a relatively new branch of science that organizes and interprets the overwhelming amount of data recently available on living organisms generated by the human genome project and follow-up projects. The need for this branch of science is real. While it is becoming increasingly simple to obtain experimental information on DNA, RNA and protein sequences and expression levels, the interpretation of this information is far from straightforward. Due to its interdisciplinary nature, there is a critical scarcity—in academia and especially in industry—of individuals with the training in molecular biology, computer science, probability and statistics and bioinformatics algorithms to interpret this data. The need for specialists with focused bioinformatics expertise is growing rapidly. New technologies such as next generation sequencing have produced a data tsunami which will continue to grow particularly with the application of this technology to clinical diagnostics. Hence the demand for bioinformatics professional will continue to grow for the foreseeable future.

NYU-Poly’s MS in Bioinformatics provides a solid, carefully tailored program of study. It responds to the needs of (1) persons with BS degrees seeking entry into the field and (2) persons with advanced degrees who may be employed in the pharmaceutical, healthcare, or IT sectors that now value and require such expertise. The program meets industry’s demand for professionals with solid foundations in genomics, proteomics, Perl & BioPerl, R & BioConductor, MySQL, sequence and pathway analysis, as well as a host of genome informatics tools and algorithms such as BLAST.

Goals and Objectives

The Bioinformatics, M.S.  offers a mechanism to train individuals seeking entry into this fast-growing field. The MS program goal is to fulfill the present educational needs with flexible on-site requirements and extensive use of Web-based or other remote-access training concepts such as multimedia instruction. In addition to traditional computer-science components, the program offers training in databases and exposure to theory and to hands-on experience with widely used bioinformatics algorithms. These include BLAST, ClustalW, hidden Markov chains and neural nets to predict protein secondary structure. The core goal is for students to understand sequence analysis (Sanger and NextGeneration), structural genomics and the protein structure/function relationship.

Programs

• Bioinformatics, M.S.