Computational Methods for Systems Biology

MSc IT option, 2004-2005

Module home page: www.brc.dcs.gla.ac.uk/courses/bioinformatics-strand/CMSB/

David Gilbert [drg@brc.dcs.gla.ac.uk]


Systems Biology: The amount and variety of biological data now available, together with techniques developed so far have enabled research in Bioinformatics to move beyond the study of individual biological components (genes, proteins etc), albeit in a genome-wide context, to attempt to study how individual parts cooperate in their operation. Bioinformatics has now moved closer to the area of Systems Biology which seeks to integrate biological data as an attempt to understand how biological systems function. By studying the relationships and interactions between various parts of a biological system it is hoped that an understandable model of the whole system can be developed.

Course definition

Prior knowledge: None required, but Basic Bioinformatics useful.

Timetable Term 2, 2005
Lectures: Tuesdays 15:00-17:00, Western Lecture Theatre 1/2
Lab: Thursdays 13:00-14:00, MScIT computer lab (10th floor Boyd Orr) [or Boyd Orr 507 Lecture Theatre C]

Lectures (Slides / handouts)
[NUMBER] = week of delivery
[1,2,3]. Metabolism for Systems Biology [David Leader] (11/01/05, 18/01/05, 25/01/05). [Notes]
[4]. Proteins for Systems Biology [David Gilbert] (01/02/05). Slides: [PDF] [PDF 6-up] [HTML]
[5]. Data sources [David Gilbert] (08/02/05). [PDF] [PDF 6-up]
[6]. Sequence comparison notes [David Gilbert] (15/02/05) [PDF] [PDF 6-up]; Graphs [David Gilbert] (15/02/05) [PDF] [PDF 6-up]
[7]. Modelling using differential equations [Rainer Breitling] (22/02/05); [PDF] [PDF 6-up]
[8]. Signalling transduction pathways (01/03/05)


[9] Analysis of Gene Expression Data (08/03/05) [Rainer Breitling] [PDF]
[10] Introduction to Petri Nets for qualitative modelling and analysis of concurrent systems (15/03/04) [Monika Heiner] [PDF]
[11] Analysing gene expression data: Classification using the Machine Learning approach [David Gilbert] (11/04/05) (19/04/05) [PDF] [PDF 6-up]
[12] Network inference; mass-spec (19/04/05) [PDF] [PDF 6-up]

Labs and tutorials
[NUMBER] = week of delivery; no lab in week 1
[2,3] Metabolism for Systems Biology: Lab 1 Lab 2
[4] Protein Structures for Systems Biology: Lab 3
[5] Data sources -- a treasure hunt... Lab 4
[6] no tutorial
[7] Modelling using MatLab Lab 5
[8] Visit to the biochemistry wet lab (signal transduction) Lab 6
[9] Visit to the Microarray data analysis section of the Sir Henry Wellcome Functional Genomics Facility: Lab 7
[10] Machine Learning - WEKA: Lab 8.
[11] Machine Learning - WEKA tutorial 2: Lab 9.

Courseworks [2 courseworks, 50% marks each]

(1) Coursework 1
(2) Coursework 2

Exams

Projects

Support material: