Welcome to the BioData Society’s Trimester Newsletter/blog

The purpose of this is make sure everyone is on the same page when it comes to university and society events, for mentors to know what their apprentices are up to as well as a way to highlight anything that may be of benefit to the group such as educational tours to local and national scientific sites and off-site talks.

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First Newsletter - 17/04/2020

First off, I’d like to say a big thanks you to everyone who is joining the society or is supporting its shear existence. To the managers, mentors and members who have helped shape it thus far, Thank you.

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And now, the News…

Apart from the global pandemic that is forcing us to all life as hermits, it looks as though much of university life will stay the same.

Exams have just been held and with no break the next term starts 11th May - 31th July 2020 and has been confirmed as online only: Academic Calendar.

Because of COVID-19, the no detriment policy will continue to be in place. This is calculated as the average of your modules in the same level (e.g. Year 1 = Level 4) as long as you get a pass mark for the assessments (40%).

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This Term

For the Bioinformaticians, this term is all IT based with the following modules:

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1 - Mathematics and Statistics for Bioinformatics:

Provides a sound basis in mathematics, statistics and analysis. You will develop a working knowledge of R, and will learn numerical data types. The module covers basic statistical concepts, including: mean; mode; standard deviation and variance. R will be used to explore biological datasets using techniques such as principal component analysis (PCA), regression and correlation analysis.

No Reading List has been released but there are plenty of online R tutorials and if you’re desperate for a real book to hold then i suggest Bioinformatics Data Skills by Vince Buffalo which goes through a wide range of information needed for a budding bioinformatician, though I would suggest get used for half the price, mine turned out to be brand new anyway. And finally, we do of course have DataCamp for all your R needs. Also our tutor for this module, Dr Dawn Hawkins, is the author of the book: Biomeasurements, so maybe give it a read if you want the browny points. —

2 - Computational Methods and Algorithms

Builds sound knowledge of the application of algorithms in bioinformatics. Basic algorithms are introduced via pseudocode. The data-structures required for efficient storage and processing of data will be introduced. Simple worked examples will be used to teach the core algorithms for sequence alignment, clustering and phylogenetics.

Reading list HERE with the one book suggested for purchase being: Grokking Algorithms: An illustrated guide for programmers and other curious people which is a £20 picture book, so that’s a bonus. It’s also free at: Grokking Algorithms with some of the chapters being audio too. —

Thanks for reading