Why Computational Biology?
This one requires a small history lesson and a summary of the field today. Computational Biology takes on very practical dilemmas such as interpreting sequences, modeling molecules, and making statistical prediction. It complements the vast amount of biological data being produced today with a means to make sense of it all. The sequencing of the human genome has given Computational Biology new relevance over the past decade: all of biology is presumed to be explainable from the genetic code. If you are a computer scientist, you get to code sequence alignment and genome assembly programs just like the biology gods — and you’ll be solving deep math problems that are very rewarding. If you are a biologist in the class, you will get an appreciation of algorithms (the beautiful, fundamental unit of computer science). And you will be able to bring back new tools to the laboratory. The course focuses on these topics: probability (aka “how to lie with statistics”), sequence analysis, achieveme
