Introduction to Biomedical Informatics
Instructortseng y. jane
DepartmentDepartment of Computer Science & Information Engineering、Graduate Institute of Computer Science & Information Engineering、Graduate Institute of Biomedical Electronics and Bioinformatics、Geno and System Biology Degree Program
Credits3
Last Offered Semester113-1
Average Rating
Quality3.6
Easy A's4.7
Freedom3.6
Workload2.4
Not offered this semester
User9687001/31/2025, 17:50
Quality
Easy A's
Freedom
Workload
📌 Course Contents
It is an introductory course, however it definitely helps if you have a biology background. Do not expect to learn how to program, the topics that are being covered relate more to the application of bioinformatics in the real world in the clinical, medical or public setting. You cover topics such as genomes, DNA sequencing methods, sequence alignment, dynamic programming, different historical projects related to the human genome, phylogenetics, sequence and protein comparison etc.
📌 Teaching Method
The classes are mainly lectures or guest talks. Lectures are very dense with information, so it might be hard to catch up if you miss one. The computations introduced are usually easy but I definitely recommend going through the examples provided by the TAs.
📌 Course Materials
There are slides and extra course materials provided by the TAs. No need to buy any book. The teacher also uses a lot of great YouTube videos which makes the concepts more engaging and easier to understand.
📌 Assignments and Exams
There are two exams; a midterm and a final; and a paper to write about and present. Additionally, after each guest talk you need to give back half a page of notes, thoughts, feedback on the talk. That is done in person and you cannot make it up online. The midterms are open book, but since there is no book, I recommend making some general notes. The exams are not difficult if you write down and bring with you the information that were most mentioned during class, you can also refer to the slides. The report needs to be written about a recent paper within the domain of bioinformatics. The presentation does not need to be presented in public, it can also be recorded an uploaded online.
📌 Grading
The TAs are very generous with the grades. Just write all that you can remember and it usually goes fine, do not leave blank pages.
📌 Reviews & Feedback
I really liked the guest lectures as the speakers often related the topic to real-life applications and their line of work. However, I thought that there were too many guest talks in relation to the actual classes. It sometimes felt like we were hearing the same story week after week and not learning anything. Having more actual lectures would also make the classes less information dense because since there were so little actual lectures, they were very intense and sometimes hard to follow.
User5898201/30/2025, 13:36
Quality
Easy A's
Freedom
Workload
📌 Assignments and Exams
2 exams and 1 project
📌 Reviews & Feedback
In some of the classes we had guest talks from important people in the biomedical area. It was nice to listen to them and learn how we can effectively use technology in medical issues.
User6469601/24/2025, 20:17
Quality
Easy A's
Freedom
Workload
📌 Reviews & Feedback
The professor was good. There were weekly lecture assignments in class, no homework, and two exams. Overall easy and chill class.
User7334701/17/2025, 03:54
Quality
Easy A's
Freedom
Workload
📌 Reviews & Feedback
The lectures that were held by the professor were very interesting and gave a good introduction to bioinformatics, accessible to people regardless if their background is in technology or biology.
Sadly most lecture slots were taken up by guest lectures that all covered similar topics and became quite bland over time. They basically only required attendance and were not relevant for midterms and finals.
The course load was quite low and getting a good grade quite easy, as the only homework was a single group report and presentation and both exams were open book and graded very fairly.
