Finding Hidden Messages in DNA (Bioinformatics I)

Join Us in a Top 50 MOOC of All Time!How do we sequence and compare genomes? How do we identify the genetic basis for disease? How do we construct an evolutionary Tree of Life for all species on Earth?When you complete this Specialization, you will learn how to answer many questions in modern biology that have become inseparable from the computational approaches used to solve them. You will also obtain a toolkit of existing software resources built on these computational approaches and that are used by thousands of biologists every day in one of the fastest growing fields in science.Although t

Created by: Pavel Pevzner

icon
Quality Score

Content Quality
/
Video Quality
/
Qualified Instructor
/
Course Pace
/
Course Depth & Coverage
/

Overall Score : 90 / 100

icon
Live Chat with CourseDuck's Co-Founder for Help

Need help deciding on a illustrator course? Or looking for more detail on Pavel Pevzner's Finding Hidden Messages in DNA (Bioinformatics I)? Feel free to chat below.
Join CourseDuck's Online Learning Discord Community

icon
Course Description

Named a top 50 MOOC of all time by Class Central!This course begins a series of classes illustrating the power of computing in modern biology. Please join us on the frontier of bioinformatics to look for hidden messages in DNA without ever needing to put on a lab coat.In the first half of the course, we investigate DNA replication, and ask the question, where in the genome does DNA replication begin? We will see that we can answer this question for many bacteria using only some straightforward algorithms to look for hidden messages in the genome.In the second half of the course, we examine a different biological question, when we ask which DNA patterns play the role of molecular clocks. The cells in your body manage to maintain a circadian rhythm, but how is this achieved on the level of DNA? Once again, we will see that by knowing which hidden messages to look for, we can start to understand the amazingly complex language of DNA. Perhaps surprisingly, we will apply randomized algorithms, which roll dice and flip coins in order to solve problems.Finally, you will get your hands dirty and apply existing software tools to find recurring biological motifs within genes that are responsible for helping Mycobacterium tuberculosis go "dormant" within a host for many years before causing an active infection.

icon
Instructor Details

Pavel Pevzner

Pavel Pevzner (https://cseweb.ucsd.edu/~ppevzner/) is Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at University of California San Diego (UCSD), where he holds the Ronald R. Taylor Chair and has taught a informatics Algorithms course for the last 12 years. In 2006, he was named a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor. In 2011, he founded the Algorithmic logy Laboratory in St. Petersburg, Russia, which develops online bioinformatics platform Rosalind (https://rosalind.info). His research concerns the creation of bioinformatics algorithms for analyzing genome rearrangements, DNA sequencing, and computational proteomics. He authored Computational Molecular logy (The MIT Press, 2000), co-authored (jointly with Neil Jones) An Introduction to informatics Algorithms (The MIT Press, 2004), and co-edited (with Ron Shamir) informatics for logists (Cambridge University Press, 2011). For his research, he has been named a Fellow of both the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and the International Society for Computational logy (ISCB).

icon
Reviews

4.5

200 total reviews

5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star
% Complete
% Complete
% Complete
% Complete
% Complete

By Saif-AlDin on 3-Aug-18

I have received financial aid because I was interested in the bioinformatics field and was reading alot about it and wanted to start my first course, it was my biggest mistake that I have chosen this course. It is awfully explained, terrible accent, basically a course with 50% information for beginners and 50% for coders and the quiz for week 2 just pumped my blood pressure to the roof, this course is in no way to be called for beginners and the interactive text is a mess and it is no way as a biotechnologist that I am going to recommend this course to anyone !, I need to apologize for coursera company for giving me aid for this COURSE !note : this course is basically like a money grab, it is not enough that you are on their course they actually from Minute one advertise for their book vol 1 and 2... such a joke. All in all I am stopping this course because the knowledge I am gaining from this course is 1 on the scale of 10, and the amount of confusion and frustration and disappointment I am getting is 10 on the scale of 10 !!I really hope coursera can forgive my dropping out of this course and allows me to get a financial aid at an actual course

By Melinda B on 30-Apr-19

This course is really frustrating if you are not a computer scientist.The 'language-neutral pseudocode' given on the computer science tasks is buggy and hard to figure out and there is no support or solutions. This course is just hours spent rerunning your code by brute force to pray you get to their answer to pass.Work is not explained well. The only reason to take this course is that its supported by UCSD.

By Gener A R on 8-Apr-19

Good course, very solid community.

By Laura L on 13-Nov-17

Very tough but rewarding class. The programming part was easy, the algorithms kicked my butt. Love the challenge and can't wait to take the rest!!! Such an interesting field!

By Juris L on 30-Jul-18

This course is very very good. Challenging at times. It does not hold your hand at all times and sometimes requires research to solve some of the problems, but I like the community and the approach.

By Federico R on 28-Sep-16

Excelente!!! Very well explained. I'm a molecular biologist seeking for some programming skills and understanding of the basics of the everydays tools. I've found some caveats in the coding problems from stepik but I understand that's difficult to give complete and exact explanations to everyone and every programming language that someone can use. Besides that everything's perfect! And recommended!

By Ahmad A on 31-Dec-18

One of the best courser, I took ever!

By Greta G H on 11-Jan-19

Great!

By Mousa J A on 12-Feb-19

A really nice course that links biology and programming

By Fabio J F on 17-Feb-19

Some activities were unnecessary but coding up the algorithms was a treat :)

By Victor C on 3-Mar-19

Loving it so far.

By Oscar J O R on 14-Aug-18

Really nice and clear course. The hands-on learning is fundamental to create a smooth transition between algorithms and biology.