Meet our Bioinformatics MSc students
Our students are a credit to our course. Their varied knowledge and backgrounds enhance your learning environment and amplify what you’ll learn during your time at Nottingham.
Bioinformatics is a rapidly developing field within Life Sciences focused on developing methods and software tools to understand and analyse the biological content and scientific value of “big data” sets produced from multiple technologies.
This new course allows you to determine the best ways to extract biological meaning from disparate data and gain technical knowledge of sequence analysis including high throughput short and long-read sequencing. From a basic understanding of programming methods to evolutionary genomics and phylogeny, we'll work with you to best tailor your art to your audience.
Skills
Understand the unique skills you'll learn from this course, and where you can use these later in life.
Skills and Careers
Bioinformatics students
See what our current students have to say about their course experiences.
Our students
Meet your tutor
We'd like to introduce you to our course tutors, who explain their research focus.
Meet your turors
Why is bioinformatics important?
Our world is full of "big data" and our lives depend on this big data, constantly evolving because of it. If you choose to study bioinformatics, you can help answer some of life's biggest and most challenging questions. Can you help save our planet, and our people? This is why we need bioinformatics.
Why study bioinformatics here at Nottingham?
Our current student, Bailey, spoke to us about everything you should know before choosing this course including what they studied previously, why they went on to study Bioinformatics afterwards and their experience so far:
Do not be put off if you have no experience of computer science, programming, or coding.
I was a complete novice coming into this course but, thanks to the excellent teaching staff who have made the process of learning these complex skills both simple and rewarding, I am now able to write computer programs to tackle complex biological problems.
I previously studied Biology at another university and after enjoying my bioinformatics-based final year project, chose to further my studies in the field. This course at Nottingham appealed to me due to the wide range of bioinformatics areas it covers.
With recent advances in technology, we are now able to use bioinformatics to tackle biological problems that were unattainable as little as 20 years ago, opening the possibility of new and exciting discoveries.
This in-depth taught course has been designed to deliver a wide range of bioinformatics skills grounded in a solid understanding and appreciation of the underlying biology sciences.
Skills you'll gain:
- coding and computer programming
- experience using cutting-edge genome sequencing technologies
- use of High Performance Computing (HPC) and Cloud Computing systems
- analysis of large and complex datasets
- phylogenetics
- statistics
- protein structural prediction
Careers you could go on to have:
- Research Scientist / Academic Bioinformatician
- Bioinformatician in industry
- Data Analysis for Pharma/Clinical/Therapeutics companies that range from Agribusiness and Plant Sciences, prevention of genetic diseases
- Field Bioinformatics Specialist
- Bioinformatic Technician (responsible for supporting the analysis and implementation high throughput genotyping platforms)
- Technologist in Bioinformatics (to support people who need to analyse large datasets but don't have the skills themselves)
- Sales Representative within research centres
What career opportunities are available?
What does this look like in practice?
One great thing about the course is that it has broadened the scope of jobs I am able to apply for.
I have considered becoming a Bioinformatics Research Scientist, shifting away from biology into data analysis.
I feel very confident in my career path, and I feel that this degree will open a lot of opportunities for me.
Additionally, it will also give me the skillset to apply for jobs in industry and even on the public sector.
The most intriguing aspect of this course is how many different career routes are available to you, based on your preferences.
As long as I'm ready to concentrate on a professional path, I'm more than certain that I have the fundamental skills needed to advance in it.
Once I graduate, I would like to continue my academic studies with a PhD based on comparative genomics.
I look forward to using all the valuable coding and data science skills that I have acquired during my master’s to these future studies.
Start your journey in bioinformatics today...
See full course information
How to apply for this course
PhD Opportunities for further education