Molecular Biology and Bioinformatics

Aim of this course is to provide students with a solid background in Molecular biology and Bioinformatics, with the description of basic processes such as DNA replication, transcription and translation both in prokaryotes and eukaryotes, and examples of regulation of these processes and of the function of proteins, that are the final executers of the genetic program of a cell. In addition, the students will acquaint with the principles of basic molecular biology techniques and with the use of software for sequence analysis and for the query of sequence databases, fundamental tools in era of genome sequencing and post-genomic analyses.

At the end of the course, students will acquire:
- basic knowledge of molecular biology, that can help them in understanding the future development of this area;
- principles of basic molecular biology techniques
In addition, the student will acquire the basic knowledge of bioinformatics necessary to:
- understand the biological data associated to the huge amount of sequence data stored in the biological database;
- query the sequence databases with the appropriate tools;
- use and correctly understand the results of sequence similarity search tools based on local or global similarity searches.