Bioinformatics and Systems Biology (joint degree)

Vast amounts of data have been collected through genomics initiatives. They provide a golden opportunity to research the secrets of life, to understand more of its complexities, to improve quality of life and to conquer major diseases. Converting this huge volume of data into real understanding is the basic challenge of Bioinformatics and Systems Biology research. Which computational techniques are available to make predictions about health outcomes and decide on a personalised treatment for a patient? How and when can we use such techniques? How can we set up experiments and models in such a way that we start to understand the complex underlying systems?

The first year in particular devotes a great deal of attention to the fundamentals of both bioinformatics and systems biology. Students with a major in bioinformatics will extend their knowledge in sequence analysis, full genome sequencing, protein structure prediction and simulation, and medical applications of bioinformatics. Students with a major in systems biology will extend their knowledge in models of biological networks, experimental verifications of models, relevance of systems biology to research and synthetic biology.

In the second and final year students perform one or two research projects.

The programme is shared between VU Amsterdam and the University of Amsterdam (UvA), combining the resources of two excellent universities.