Programme Description

The Master´s Degree Programme in Bioinformatics is a new field of science seeking answers to the questions of life raised by biology and medicine. Bioinformatics uses computational means to obtain the answers. It is possible to study the infective potential of a virus by modelling its three-dimensional surface structure.

The function of genes can be uncovered by a computational study of DNA sequences. The utilisation of renewable resources for biofuel production - as an example - can be improved by metabolic modelling. Machine learning can be used to seek cellular mechanisms of cancer from gene expression and metabolomics data.

The analysis of measurement data is of vital importance in modern biological and medical research. Understanding such data requires both statistical modelling and efficient computational methods.

Master's Degree Programme in Bioinformatics (MBI) aims to educate bioinformatics professionals who specialise in computational and statistical methods to work in the research and development tasks in biology and medicine. The degree also gives an excellent general background for postgraduate studies in bioinformatics and in other related applied methodological sciences.

Organised jointly by the University of Helsinki (UH) and the Helsinki University of Technology (TKK), the Bioinformatics Master´s Programme offers excellent opportunities for bioinformatics studies. Research in bioinformatics at these two institutions is of the highest quality in Europe. Both UH and TKK have extensive contacts to universities and research institutes abroad. This guarantees wide-ranging options for student exchange and post-graduate studies.

The Master's Degree in Bioinformatics consists of an extensive portion of general methodological studies with a strong emphasis on central bioinformatics problem-settings. Examples of specialisation areas are: biological sequences analysis, biomathematics, biometrics, computational systems biology, and data mining in genetics. Minor subject studies are carefully tailored to give a sufficient background to each major specialisation area.

MBI graduates will be able to obtain positions in industrial and academic facilities such as biomedical companies, universities and research institutions. A bioinformatician often acts in a multidisciplinary environment with people from both methodological sciences, and biosciences and medicine. It is thus important that a bioinformatician is able to master topics from different disciplines.

http://www.helsinki.fi/internationalprogrammes/masterprogrammes/mbi.html