Professional Masters of Science in Bioinformatics at Georgia Tech
by Annika Haglund

On Friday March 10, 2000, ASU's Mathematics Department and the PFMF group had the pleasure of having Dr. Leonid Bunimovich on a visit from the School of Mathematics at Georgia Tech.

Dr. Bunimovich is on the faculty committee for one of Georgia Tech's new Master of Science programs in Bioinformatics. Bioinformatics is a new discipline combining mathematics and statistics with computer methods to analyze biological data specifically biochemical and biophysical data. Dr. Bunimovich shared his experiences with us from starting a new Master's degree program, everything from curricular issues to organizational issues.

In this first academic year, fall 99/spring 2000, of running the new program, 14 of the maximum 15 positions in the program are filled. The students are expected to be full time students with a course load of 12 credits per semester; and , so far, Georgia Tech does not support any of the students in the Bioinformatics Master's program. The cost of attending Georgia Tech for the academic year 99/00 is $1800 for instate students per semester and $8000 for out-of-state students per semester.

The prerequisites for entering the Bioinformatics program at Georgia Tech are:

Due to the some what general and diverse requirements for entering the program, the Bioinformatics program faces the challenge from a much diverse student population entering the program.

The students entering the program can be categorized into two different areas with respect to their background. In one category are the students with a strong background in either mathematics, computer science, or physics; very often do these students lack sufficient knowledge in biology and chemistry. Similarly, the other category of entering students have a strong background in biology and chemistry while perhaps lacking in areas of advanced mathematics and computer science.

This challenge was solved through a clever program curriculum development by the faculty committee for the Bioinformatics degree. One of the factors determining course content of the Bioinformatics program emanated when the committee asked themselves: "What do we want the students to know at the end? And, how should we get them there?" Now, due to the diversity in the entering students' backgrounds, the first semester the students have a possibility to strengthen their possible "weak" areas. For instance, a student entering with a mathematics background might take the Biochemistry course where as a student with a biology background say instead of Biochemistry takes the specially designed course for the Bioinformatics program: Modeling and Dynamics. The second specially designed course for the program is: Introduction to Computational Concepts in Bioinformatics.

The development of the new Master's program in Bioinformatics was funded by the SLOAN foundation. Dr. Bunimovich further explained that there is much flexibility to change the context of the program to fit the needs of the industry. The projected need from the industry for Bioinformatics graduates is strong for the next 10 - 15 years.

Finally, the Masters program in Bioinformatics from Georgia Tech does not require any thesis or applied projects which would be the major difference from a future program in a mathematics topic from ASU.