Characteristics and objectives of the study

Biological sciences are currently closely intertwined with chemical sciences, and with the development of knowledge and technical possibilities in these fields, there are increasing demands for orientation in information about the structure, activity and reactivity of biomolecules. Therefore, there is a need to educate experts who are able to understand the organization of biological and chemical data and to combine and process these data in an informed manner. Moreover, such an expert would be able to manage the communication between natural scientists (chemists, biologists,...) and computer programmers and would be able to convey to both parties a common view of the information problem.

The bachelor specialization Bioinformatics is therefore the application of statistical and computational methods in the field of molecular biology and genetics. It mainly focuses on the processing of data from databases of biomolecules (DNA, RNA and protein sequences). The results obtained from the application of bioinformatics methodologies are very beneficial, for example, in the field of health care, biotechnology and food industry. A related field is chemoinformatics, which uses informatics and algorithmic approaches to solve chemical problems. It mainly focuses on the extraction of information from databases of small or medium-sized molecules and finds applications in areas such as drug design, pharmaceutics, medical and environmental research.

Within the undergraduate specialization in Bioinformatics, students will encounter selected biological, chemical, computer science and mathematical subjects that will help them to penetrate into the processing and analysis of information regarding organic molecules and biomolecules. These include the study of high-throughput methodologies for the structural analysis of molecules, such as next-generation sequencing, NMR or X-ray crystallography, providing an increasing amount of information about the structure of molecules, as well as modern information technology. The increasing amount of data and technical capabilities is creating more and more space for understanding the relationships between the structure of molecules and their properties or biological activity. In parallel, there is also a growing demand for experts who are able, on the one hand, to comprehensively understand the chemical aspects of the problem and, on the other hand, to work with molecules written in computers and to design and implement methodologies for their study and processing.

Graduate profile

Graduates of the Bachelor's specialization in Bioinformatics have a basic knowledge of the fundamentals of chemical disciplines (general chemistry, physical chemistry, analytical chemistry, organic chemistry and biochemistry), molecular biology and genetics and other natural science disciplines (mathematics, physics). He/she is also oriented in information acquisition and processing (chemical literature, chemoinformatics, bioinformatics, data processing) and has an overview of basic computer science disciplines (operating systems, computer networks, programming). If he/she goes into practice after completing his/her bachelor's degree, he/she may find employment in the field of programming, database development, chemical and biological information processing, or web application development and maintenance.

Follow-up for further study

After completing your bachelor's degree, you can go on to study for a master's degree and then possibly a doctorate. If a graduate decides to pursue a follow-up master's degree, he or she may consider one of the following fields in particular: bioinformatics, biomolecular chemistry, theoretical and computational chemistry, development and maintenance of chemical and biological databases, and application programming. After successful completion, you can choose from the following career fields: pharmaceutical industry and drug design, medical research and healthcare, IT product development, biotechnology and food industry, coordination of interdisciplinary teams.