The past decade has seen an explosion of biological data, including the DNA sequence of a number of organisms. The course is aimed at graduate students in computer science who are interested in bioinformatics. It is intended to introduce students to the practice of assembling and analyzing short-read sequencing data from Roche 454, Illumina, Pacific Biosciences, and other next generation sequencing platforms.
 
Students completing the course will be able to map short-read data to sequenced genomes and query the mapping for variations and transcript prevalence. A large portion of the course will focus on being able to understand and present bioinformatics research literature, and engage in critical evaluation of the research presented.