PHST 750

Statistics for Bioinformatics

This course focuses on the statistical methods and computational tools for analyzing data generated from DNA and protein sequences, genetic maps, and polymorphic marker data. This course will review the basics of genetics/molecular biology and statistical inference and probability needed for analyzing DNA and protein sequences. Covered topics include introduction to stochastic processes, analysis and motif discovery within a single DNA/protein sequence, comparison and alignment of two or more DNA/protein sequences, the foundations of substitution matrices, the statistical underpinnings of BLAST, hidden Markov models, evolutionary models, and phylogenetic trees. This course is developed for individuals interested in pursuing research in computational biology, genomics, and bioinformatics. Students are expected to be familiar with some elementary statistics and probability concepts

Units: 3.0