Period: Spring semester
Deadline for application: 03/05/2027
Number of places: Unlimited
Credits: 4 ECTS
Adaptation for criss-cross students: none
Syllabus: Bioinformatics is an interdisciplinary field of study that uses information technology and computer science to study, analyze, and extract useful knowledge from information gathered from different areas of bioscience and biohealth research. This and much more will be covered during this MOOC.
The digital revolution we have experienced in recent years has made it possible to gather a large amount of information from different fields in bioscience and biohealth investigation. This has led to bioinformatics becoming one of the most important emerging areas dedicated to the study, analysis, and extraction of useful knowledge from these data by leveraging computer science techniques. For example, the application of these methods is opening new research frontiers in biomedical engineering by improving our understanding of complex diseases such as cancer and neurodegenerative and psychiatric disorders. These advances could lead to the development of tools for automated patient diagnosis, enabling the provision of personalized medical treatments that consider the variability, lifestyle, and environment of each individual patient. At the same time, bioinformatics and machine learning is now encouraging the fast and efficient development of new and more effective drugs and vaccines. However, the amount of information produced by these technologies is now so vast that these data have become very difficult to analyze using traditional methods. As a result, the application of artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques has significantly increased in recent years because of their ability to automatically acquire useful knowledge, make predictions, and aid decision making. In some cases, special techniques must now be applied to deal with this enormous amount of new information (which is also referred to as ‘big data’). In this MOOC we will present a practical and applied overview of the main tasks and techniques applied in the fields of bioinformatics and machine learning. We have divided the course into 8 modules and the contents will be delivered by more than 10 different professors, researchers, and specialists in each of the areas we cover. Our goal is to make the content as easy and simple to learn as possible while also maintaining scientific rigor. Furthermore, a deep understanding of programming language (Python) is not necessary to follow the content of this MOOC.
This course will be delivered through the UGR’s abiertaUGR e-learning platform which will provide direct links to NoteBooks on the Google Colaboratory platform. This will allow students to keep a record of their activity for later evaluation and recognition through the award of badges (and a course certificate should they wish). Audiovisual materials, NoteBooks, complementary didactic resources, testimonials from relevant people, activities, and questionnaires will all be used to complement this program. In addition, students will have access to direct teacher support through abiertaUGR. Thus, this MOOC is dedicated to one of the most important current scientific fields and is of relevance to many other related scientific domains.
More info: https://abierta.ugr.es/course/view.php?id=179
