Target audience

The course is aimed at PhD students with a background in bioinformatics, computer science or a related field; a working knowledge of basic statistics and linear algebra is assumed. The NBIC Technology Track course"Pattern recognition" and the ASCI course "Advanced pattern recognition" (a1) discuss many of the tools used in this course, but it is not required to have followed these. Prior knowledge of molecular biology is a bonus, but also not strictly required.

Course Description

In this course, we will first give a brief overview of molecular biology, the advent of high-throughput measurement techniques and large databases containing biological knowledge, and the importance of networks to model all this. We will highlight a number of peculiar features of biological networks. Next, a number of basic network models (linear, Boolean, Bayesian) will be discussed, as well as methods of inferring these from observed measurement data. A number of alternative network models more suited for high-level simulation of cellular behaviour will also be introduced. Building on the network inference methods, a number of ways of integrating various data sources and databases to refine biological networks will be discussed, with specific attention to the use of sequence information to refine transcription regulation networks. Finally, we will give some examples of algorithms exploiting the networks found to learn about biology, specifically for inspecting protein interaction networks and for finding active subnetworks.

Course topics

1. Monday 16-1-2012 Networks in biology

2. Tuesday 17-1-2012 Network inference

3. Wednesday 18-1-2012 Network enhancement

4. Thursday 19-1-2012 Network validation and execution

5. Friday 20-1-2012 Network mining

More information about the course programme can be found on: http://www.nbic.nl/education/nbic-phd-school/course-schedule/algorithms-for-biological-networks/
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NBIC PhD School

This course is part of the Education Programme of the NBIC PhD School. The NBIC PhD School offers training and education for PhD students in bioinformatics.
More information about the NBIC PhD School can also be found on http://www.nbic.nl => Education => NBIC PhD School.

More information

For more information about the course you can contact Celia van Gelder (NBIC Education) at education@nbic.nl.