The international Master Programme in
Life Science Informatics
started in the fall of 2002 at the Bonn-Aachen International Center for Information Technology (B-IT). Life Science Informatics is offered by the
University of Bonn
and
RWTH Aachen
in cooperation with the
Fraunhofer Institutes at Sankt Augustin
near Bonn. This interdisciplinary programme will educate the participant to successfully master the novel technical and economic challenges at the crossroads of biotechnology, medicine, pharmaceutics and computer science. The programme is distinguished by its international orientation, its focus on both natural science and IT competence, and its high level of integration of research and teaching. The master's programme in Life Science Informatics consists of three main blocks:
computer science and mathematics for natural scientists,
basic principles of Life Science Informatics,
biology of the cell and systems biology.
The programme is characterised by a significant share of research lab courses embedded in both basic and applied research of the participating
Fraunhofer Institutes of Applied Information Technology (FIT)
and for
Algorithms and Scientific Computing (SCAI)
, in cooperation with regional industry. Major topics include: biomedical database systems, management and retrieval of information, data mining and machine learning, statistical genetics, drug design, medical imaging and visualisation, computational neuroscience, computational modeling of regulatory and metabolics networks, and systems biology. Special courses and internships on information retrieval and data mining provide a special focus on (or within) the important application domain of biomedical information systems. The programme also includes training designed to sensitise students to the ethical implications of emerging biotechnologies.
The final six months of the programme are dedicated to the master thesis which can be done in co-operation with industry.
The course contents are structured according to the
ECTS (European Credit Transfer System)
. Each student is assigned a professor as personal mentor.
Research in complex genome data lays the foundations for medical drug discovery
Career Opportunities
Computer scientists with an applied focus in biosciences as well as biologists with a strong background in computer science have been in great demand in the past, and this trend is expected to continue in the foreseeable future. With a MSc degree in Life Science Informatics you will be well prepared for the typical job tasks in applied data analysis and data modeling, in industrial functional genomics, drug development, and pharmacology. With its strong focus on biomedical research the University of Bonn and the University Hospital offer several interesting opportunities to work closely with experimental researchers. In addition, the ABCD region (Aachen, Bonn, Cologne, Düsseldorf) is home to many prospective employers, including global players such as Bayer, as well as many highly specialized medium-sized companies such as Gruenenthal.
For more information please contact
B-IT
Co-ordination Team of
Life Science Informatics
Dahlmannstraße 2
D-53113 Bonn
Germany
E-mail: msc-lsi (at) b-it-center.de*
*Note: Please replace "(at)" with "@" and remove the blanks to get the correct e-mail address.