Overview

The genomic revolution in biology enables one to answer many questions in medical sciences like personalized medicine, the etiology of diseases like cancer, HIV, etc. However, the answers to these questions are impossible without a support of powerful computational and statistical tools that helps to understand and uncover the underlying network design principles responsible for these diseases. With the advent of new biotechnological techniques massive amounts of genomics data are generated at a rapid pace from the experiments and the analysis of these data requires tremendous amount of domain knowledge, solid computational background and strong programming skills. The entry cost of this highly interdisciplinary field consists of a good amount of understanding of molecular biology, genomics, algorithms, programming, statistical computation, machine learning, stochastic processes, and other mathematical techniques that underlie biological design principles. Therefore, it is imperative to stitch biology, statistics, algorithms and mathematical models to analyze and interpret large-scale genomic and biological data. Though the need and potential applications of computational biology and bioinformatics is tremendous in India, currently very few groups have strength and capability in this area. IIIT-Delhi, with its strong focus on research, and already having a good faculty in various CS and EE, is well suited to build a strong theoretical MTech program in Computational Biology.

Program Structure

In the M.Tech CB program, the student will do 32 credits of course work and 16 credits for a Thesis, for a total of 48 credits. The student will have to do a minimum of 20 credits of coursework in Computational Biology. Following are the core and elective subjects for this program. This list will evolve over time.

Core Courses

• Foundations of Modern Biology
• Algorithms in Computational Biology
• Cell Biology and Biochemistry
• Introduction to Mathematical Biology