Program overview
The Bioinformatics M.S. program at the University of Illinois is designed to satisfy the demands of a highly interdisciplinary and rapidly evolving field. The program is offered through a unique partnership that currently involves four colleges and five participating departments and schools. The Bioinformatics M.S. program is owned by the Graduate College and operated, in a franchise-like fashion, by the participating units that offer concentrations in the M.S. in Bioinformatics. A Bioinformatics Steering Committee that reports to the Dean of the Graduate College guarantees a common core and uniform program quality across departmental options.
Top five reasons to join the program
- This is a truly interdisciplinary program that has been developed by four participating colleges and five departments/schools. As such, it exposes students to all aspects of bioinformatics and leads to a broader knowledge of the field.
- Faculty mentors and instructors at the University of Illinois come with internationally recognized expertise. Students will have the opportunity to participate in cutting edge research projects in all aspects of bioinformatics and related fields, including molecular biology, computer science, statistics, engineering, and health informatics. University research centers in this area include the Center for Biophysics and Computational Biology and an NIH Resource for Macromolecular Modeling and Bioinformatics.
- The campus offers state-of-the-art experimental bioinformatics facilities, including those in the Keck Center for Comparative and Functional Genomics and the $75 million, 186,000 square feet Institute for Genomic Biology.
- The National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), located at the University, offers opportunities for accessing, developing, and experimenting with state-of-the-art computational facilities for bioinformatics.
- The University of Illinois provides a comprehensive set of graduate courses in life sciences, computer and mathematical sciences, and engineering, with over 100 courses that can be used as technical electives for this program.
Program requirements
The degree is offered in both thesis and non-thesis options. For the thesis option, a minimum of 32 hours are required, including a minimum of 28 hours of course work (the standard one-semester graduate course at the University of Illinois is a four-hour course). For the non-thesis option, a minimum of 36 hours are required. For either option, at least 12 hours must be taken at the advanced graduate level. In addition, a minimum of 12 hours must be taken from courses approved for degree credit in each of three core bioinformatics areas:
- Fundamental bioinformatics (courses in genomics, proteomics, bioinformatics, and computational biology).
- Biology (courses in general biochemistry and cell biology).
- Computer Science (courses in database systems and combinatorial algorithms).
Courses that satisfy these requirements are listed
here.
Admission process
Students interested in this program must apply for admission to one of the participating departments/units:
