Design and Implementation of an Introductory Course for Computer Applications in Molecular Biology and Genetics

A computational biology course is becoming an integral component of many graduate programs. It is clear that the students who are interested in pursuing training in computational biology possess substantially different levels of expertise. How then, does one best meet the needs of all participants? This can be accomplished by providing two separate courses that are specifically designed for either the basic or advanced student. The first basic level course should be tailored to those students who are just acquiring computer skills in computational biology. The second advanced course would then serve senior graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and principal investigators. Advanced courses tacitly assume that the participants will have a basic working knowledge of sequence analysis and computer systems. There are several advanced courses offered at various institutions around the globe. A partial listing is available at the Frontiers in Bioscience web site: