Major in Chemistry with Concentration in Bioinformatics
Requirements: The purpose of this interdisciplinary concentration is to prepare students to enter computer-intensive fields of bioinformatics, computational biology, computational chemistry and molecular modeling including genomics and proteomics. With the advent of the Human Genome Project, an explosion of genomics information has occurred, and databases such as GenBank and EMBL have grown at a rate that now requires storage, organizing and indexing of the information. Questions of gene expression have led to computational biology, the process of analyzing genomic sequences and to the field of proteomics, the understanding of protein structure and function. The information obtained by computational biology and computational chemistry is used in the design of new drugs to treat a variety of diseases. Major drug and biotechnology companies are seeking people trained in bioinformatics.
In addition to the requirements for the Major in Chemistry:
BI 201 Cell Biology or BI 203 Genetics+
BT 378 Bioinformatics
CS 140 Introduction to Programming
CS 242 Data Structures
CS 282 UNIX Systems Programming
CS 265 Database Applications
One course from:
BI 201 Cell Biology
BI 203 Genetics+
BI 204 Microbiology
BI 306 Developmental Biology+
BI 353 Tree of Life: Evolutionary Systematics
BI 371 Molecular Biology+
BI 375 Virology+
BT 376 Biotechnology
+requires additional prerequisite courses beyond those required for the major and concentration.