"Graduate school at Yale has been an extremely positive experience. It seems that every day I find a new reason that I am thankful for joining this program. Whether it’s the camaraderie I share with all of the like-minded and intelligent students I work with, or the plethora of resources the school makes available to us, I am constantly reminded of how outstanding the Yale BBS program is. The faculty here are all brilliant scientists and wonderful mentors, and you can count on the administrative staff to be very helpful no matter what your problem. In addition, there is always something to do here in New Haven. Whether it’s going to GPSCY for a drink with friends or enjoying club sports, I find that I almost never spend a night sitting at home bored."
Christopher Bolen
Computational Biology and Bioinformatics Track
The Bioinformatics Revolution
The past few years have witnessed a revolution in the biological sciences. Exciting and efficient new approaches have become available for the analysis of entire genomes (the complete genetic program of an organism) and proteomes (the entire set of proteins encoded by an organism), and the analysis of large data sets. A critical direction of future biological research will be to determine the function of the many genes identified by the genome analysis of these different organisms, how the many different genes are regulated, and how they work together to mediate complex biological processes at the molecular level. In particular, the systematic acquisition of data made possible by genomics technologies has created a tremendous gap between available data and their biological interpretation. Given the rate of data generation, it is well recognized that this gap will not be closed with direct individual experimentation. Computational and theoretical approaches to understanding biological systems provide a key inroad into closing this gap. Computational Biology and Bioinformatics is a new field where biological problems are addressed using these data with computational, theoretical, and genomics techniques. Activities in this field include: biological modeling, genomic analysis, database and data-mining, algorithm development and high-performance computing, statistical and mathematical analyses, as well as computational management of large-scale projects.
What is Computational Biology and Bioinformatics?
Computational Biology and Bioinformatics is a new field where biological problems are addressed using these data with computational, theoretical, and genomics techniques. Activities in this field include: biological modeling, genomic analysis, database and data-mining, algorithm development and high-performance computing, statistical and mathematical analyses, as well as computational management of large-scale projects.
Our Program
The Computational Biology and Bioinformatics Track combines research training opportunities in a range of different fields within the biological sciences in addition to the computational sciences, biostatistics, and applied mathematics. The scope and balance of a student’s program are highly individualized. Each student in the Track develops, with the assistance of faculty advisers, a specific program of course work, independent reading, and research that gives a breadth and depth of coverage and fits his or her individual background, interests, and career goals.
