Brown University Center for Computational Molecular Biology

Undergraduate Study

Computational Biology Undergraduate Program

Standard Program for the Sc.B. Degree

Computational biology involves the analysis and discovery of biological phenomena using computational tools, and the algorithmic design and analysis of such tools. The field is widely defined and includes foundations in computer science, applied mathematics, statistics, biochemistry, molecular biology, genetics, ecology, evolution, anatomy, neuroscience, and visualization.

Our program educates the student liberally in these fields, building on a foundation of coursework that may then focus via several possible tracks. The program offers four possible tracks: computational genomics, biological sciences, molecular modeling and applied mathematics and statistical genomics. The program requires a senior capstone experience that pairs students and faculty in creative research collaborations.


Computational Biology graduates are candidates for competitive positions in industry or for training in academic science.


Prerequisites
MATH 0100 (Introductory Calculus II) or MATH 0170 (Advanced Placement Calculus)
BIOL 0200 (The Foundation of Living Systems)

or equivalents

General Core Course Requirements

Chemistry:
CHEM 0330 (Equilibrium, Rate, Structure)

Biology:
BIOL 0470 (Genetics) Prerequisite BIOL 0200 or equivalent
and one of the following:
BIOL 0280 (Introduction to Biochemistry)
BIOL 0500 (Molecular Cell Biology)

Computer Science:
CSCI 0150 (Intro to Object-Oriented Programming & Computer Science) No Prerequisite
CSCI 0160 (Algorithms and Data Structures) Prerequisite CSCI 0150
or
CSCI 0170 (Computer Science: An Integrated Introduction Part I) No Prerequisite
CSCI 0180 (Computer Science: An Integrated Introduction Part II) Prerequisite CSCI 0170
or
CSCI0190 Programming with Data Structures and Algorithms

All students must take:
CSCI 0220 (Introduction to Discrete Structures and Probability) No Prerequisite

Probability and Statistics:
APMA 1650 (Statistical Inference I)

Computational Biology Core Course Requirements
CSCI 1810 (Computational Molecular Biology) Prerequisite (CSCI 0160 or 0180) & CSCI 0220
APMA 1080 (Statistical Inference in Molecular Biology and Genomics) [ New Course ]

Capstone Experience: Students enrolled in the computational biology concentration will complete a research project in their senior year under faculty supervision. The themes of such projects evolve with the field and the technology, but should represent a synthesis of the various specialties of the program. A minimum of one semester of independent study is required (such as BIOL 1950 or CSCI 1970), although many students may conduct a full year of independent study.

Honors: To be a candidate for honors, a student must have a course record judged to be excellent by the concentration advisor and must complete a thesis judged to be outstanding by the faculty member supervising the work.

Tracks

Students must complete six courses in one of the following four tracks, as specified below:

Computational Genomics Track: This track is designed for students whose interests lie in the development of algorithms and high-quality software (tools and systems) for biological applications. Advisor: Sorin Istrail, Computer Science.

Three of the following:
CSCI 1230 (Introduction to Computer Graphics)
CSCI 1270 (Database Management Systems)
CSCI 1410 (Introduction to Artificial Intelligence)
CSCI 1550 (Probabilistic Methods in Computer Science)
CSCI 1570 (Design and Analysis of Algorithms)
or other CS courses approved by the concentration advisor

Three of the following:
CSCI 0310 (Introduction to Computer Systems)
CSCI 0320 (Introduction to Software Engineering) or CSCI 0360 (Introduction to Systems Programming))
CSCI 1950L (Algorithmic Foundations of Computational Biology)
PHP 2620 (Statistical Methods in Bioinformatics)
APMA 1660 (Statistical Inference II)
BIOL 1430 (Computational Theory of Molecular Evolution)


Biological Sciences Track: This track is designed for students whose interests lean more towards biological questions. Advisor: David Rand, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.


At least four courses comprising a coherent theme in one of the following areas:
1. Biochemistry
2. Ecology
3. Evolution/Genetics
4. Neurobiology

Two course from the following:
CSCI 1950-L (Algorithmic Foundations of Computational Biology)
PHP2620 (Statistical Methods in Bioinformatics)
APMA 1660 (Statistical Inference II)
BIOL 1430 (Computational Theory of Molecular Evolution)


Molecular Modeling Track: This track is designed for students who wish to gain competence in the field of molecular modeling and drug design. Advisor: William Suggs, Chemistry.

CHEM 1560A (Molecular Modeling)

At least three courses from the following:
CHEM 1150 (Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics)
CHEM 1230 (Bioorganic Chemistry), CHEM 1240 (Biochemistry), or BIOL 1270 (Advanced Biochemistry)
BIOL 0530 (Immunology)
BIOL 1260 (Physiological Pharmacology)
BIOL 1540 (Molecular Genetics)

Two courses from the following:
CSCI 1950L (Algorithmic Foundations of Computational Biology)
PHP 2620 (Statistical Methods in Bioinformatics)
APMA 1660 (Statistical Inference II)
BIOL 1430 (Computational Theory of Molecular Evolution)

Applied Mathematics and Statistical Genomics Track: This track is designed for students whose interest focuses on extracting information from genomic and molecular biology data, and modeling the dynamics of these systems. Substitution of more advanced courses with consent of advisor is permitted. Advisor: Charles Lawrence, Applied Mathematics.

At least three courses from the following:
APMA 1660 (Statistical Inference II)
APMA 1690 (Computational Probability and Statistics)
CSCI 1410 (Introduction to Artificial Intelligence)
APMA 0340 (Methods of Applied Mathematics I) {or APMA 0330}
APMA 0360 (Methods of Applied Mathematics II) {or APMA 0350}

At least three of the following:
BIOL 1430 (Computational Theory of Molecular Evolution)
CSCI 1950L (Algorithmic Foundations of Computational Biology)
PHP 2620 (Statistical Methods in Bioinformatics)
APMA 1070 (Quantitative Models in Biological Systems)



The 10th Anniversary of
Undergraduate Computational Biology Concentration

Franco Preparata, An Wang Professor
-see full size image-

In the relatively remote past, the science of life concerned itself with macroscopic features of living matter, which were used to explain both the morphology and the functions of living organisms.

Such features were the basis also for taxonomy of species, in that similarities, both morphological and functional, were construed as evidence of relatively close common ancestry on the evolutionary trail. Although the empirical laws of heredity, as well as the physical sites of the heredity carriers, had been known for a long time, the detailed mechanisms of the process remained nearly inscrutable until well into this century, except for the realization that certain chemicals, the nucleic acids, were intimately connected with the process.

Scientific discoveries of about half a century ago were bound drastically to subvert this established mode of scientific inquiry. Crucial was the elucidation of the structure of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) and of its role as the fundamental carrier of hereditary information. The revolutionary discovery of the DNA doublehelix structure by Watson and Crick in 1953 ushered in the era of molecular biology. They showed that DNA is a sequence of pairs of four structurally similar basic constituents called bases and denoted by the standard letters A, C, G, and T (as is well known, these are the initials of their respective chemical denominations). In fact, each base can be paired (has strong chemical affinity) with just another base, so only the pairs AT, CG, GC, and TA occur in the DNA sequence. While this view of DNA is perfectly adequate for its description, it is perhaps more significant to consider DNA as the pairing of two complementary strands, each carrying the same hereditary (genetic) information. This structure is essential for DNA replication, the archetypal phenomenon of reproduction: the two strands of a sequence are separated in the cell and each of them is copied into a complementary strand, giving rise to two replicas of the original sequence. This brief and very schematic digression is not intended to oversimplify marvelously complex biological phenomena, but simply to provide a glimpse into the emerging discrete structure of molecular biology.

In fact, the realization that the above four bases are the building blocks of the description of the genetic patrimony is appropriately viewed as the informatization of biology, in that it shifts the description into the conventional computer-science nomenclature of sequences over a finite alphabet. This feature is not exclusive to DNA, but recurs for other biomolecules, such as RNA (the other fundamental nucleic acid) and, with a larger alphabet, for proteins. This characterization establishes a natural link between the two domains, since they use analogous descriptive devices.

Contemporary with the beginning of molecular biology was the advent of the computer era. In its first decade, the rather rudimentary technology made the computer seem more a wondrous curiosity than a tool accessible to vast segments of users. The physical size of the installations, the associated physical plant, and the dismally poor reliability of the computers in no way let anyone suspect its ubiquitousness today. Thus it is not surprising that contacts between biology and computer science materialized somewhat later.

As the computer field was progressing rapidly (already in the sixties was computer science identified as an autonomous academic discipline), the informatization of biology revealed an entirely new host of problems. The notions of morphological or functional similarity evolved into the notion of similarity between sequences (polymers) of chemical constituents. For any class of homologous such sequences (we mean here just that two sequences are homologous if they can be meaningfully compared) this approach immediately poses two problems. The first is the definition of the metrics, i.e., a quantitative model for the measurement of sequence similarity (or distance). The second is the development of methods (algorithms) to carry out such quantitative assessment.



For example, consider the two DNA sequences displayed in Figure 1a. How similar are they? Obviously, two sequences are identical if no modification is needed to "transform" one to the other. Therefore, to quantify similarity we must first specify the types of primitive operations allowed to transform one sequence to the other and, second, we must assign a "penalty" weight to each of them. With this model in place, we must seek the least-weight sequence of operations that realizes the desired transformation. If the operations are substitution and insertion/deletion and have all penalty 1, then we find that the alignment of Figure 1b describes a least-weight transformation (of weight 3, one substitution and two insertions/ deletions).

This trivial example illustrates the features of the alignment problem, which plays an important role in computational biology, both for its modeling difficulties (which are the biologically significant primitives and their weights?) and its algorithmic complexity (the collective alignment of several sequences of several hundred characters each). In addition to alignments, a vast collection of problems lies today at the intersection of computer science and biology: DNA fragment assembly, physical mapping, phylogeny, molecular structure prediction, genome rearrangement, and so on. Many of these problems have been stimulated by the human genome project (i.e., the mapping of the entire human DNA patrimony) but have also been fueled by rapidly growing industrial interest.



The typical function of drugs has been identified as the key-to-lock fit of the drug to some "geometric" feature of the agent to be controlled, and since form is largely determined by structure (i.e., sequence), therapeutics is the emerging professional field drawing from computational biology. Another important aspect is to intervene in the genetic mechanisms of diseases. Quoting from a recent advertisement: "Our focus is to identify and characterize genes involved in common diseases and to translate our discoveries into therapeutic break-throughs...



Challenging and rewarding opportunities exist..." The market is so active as to prompt a recent commentary (Science, 21 June 1996) entitled "Hot Property: Biologists Who Compute".

Typically, computational biologists have been professionals from either field who have taken on the difficult task of retraining themselves in the other discipline. This approach has several shortcomings. First, individuals willing to undertake such an unconventional educational path (self-teaching) are not the norm, and thus are not numerous enough to fill a clearly identified professional need. Second, a selfinstruction plan may not be sufficiently systematic to meet the requirements. Third, one must take into consideration a subtle feature in the sociology of peer groups in research and professions, that is, "acceptance". A peer group accepts individuals with similar academic backgrounds, and such acceptance is rarely complete in the case of retraining. Indeed, it has been quite common for computer science to force (unrealistic) modelings for the benefit of algorithmic simplicity, and for biologists to content themselves with commercially available software tools, rather than undertaking original algorithmic development. This state of affairs and the propitious opportunity offered by the excellent flexibility of Brown's undergraduate curriculum prompted the idea of proposing a new undergraduate concentration in computational biology.



Whereas several graduate programs in computational biology exist at various universities in the country, we felt it essential to undertake the initiative at the earliest possible stage of college education. The motivation was to prepare graduates who would feel equally at ease with biochemistry and life sciences as with algorithms and software engineering, and be naturally recognized as peers by graduates in either camp. Whereas it may be observed that the instructional offerings were, to a large extent, already available in Brown's rich repertoire, a well thought-out plan can be an invaluable guide for the student oriented towards this new field and in addition provides the desired professional label. A proposal, originally conceived by David Rand, Bill Suggs, and myself, and fine-tuned by the advice of several other colleagues, was presented to the College Curriculum Council and approved in May 1997.

The core offerings of the concentration are designed to provide a balanced background in the interacting disciplines. This core is complemented by specialized tracks designed to differentiate among a number of related professions with identifiable expertise and skill. Thus the software track is for students interested in developing commercial software for biological applications; the molecular modeling track is for students interested in competence in molecular modeling and drug design; the biological sciences track is for students interested primarily in biological questions. In addition to core courses and electives, the program requires as its capstone experience the completion of a senior research project under close faculty supervision. The stewardship of the program is entrusted to three concentration advisors, respectively in Computer Science, Chemistry, and Biology and Medicine. Beside the usual advising responsibilities, the advisors have the task of supervising the evolution of the program.

Minimally, the proposed program identifies among the current offerings an instructional package that can be legitimately named Computational Biology. As the program evolves, we expect the establishment of a permanent lecture series and of graduate research and instructional initiatives, and, possibly, the addition of faculty clearly identifiable with the field.

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