Animal Science: Bioinformatics (Ph.D.)
Offered by: Animal Science (Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences)
Degree: Doctor of Philosophy
Note: For information about Fall 2025 and Winter 2026 course offerings, please check back on May 8, 2025. Until then, the "Terms offered" field will appear blank for most courses while the class schedule is being finalized.
Thesis
A thesis for the doctoral degree must constitute original scholarship and must be a distinct contribution to knowledge. It must show familiarity with previous work in the field and must demonstrate ability to plan and carry out research, organize results, and defend the approach and conclusions in a scholarly manner. The research presented must meet current standards of the discipline; as well, the thesis must clearly demonstrate how the research advances knowledge in the field. Finally, the thesis must be written in compliance with norms for academic and scholarly expression and for publication in the public domain.
Required Courses (5 credits)
| Course | Title | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| ANSC 701 | Doctoral Comprehensive Examination. | 0 |
Doctoral Comprehensive Examination. Terms offered: Fall 2025, Winter 2026 An examination that must be passed by all doctoral candidates in order to continue in the doctoral program. | ||
| ANSC 797 | Animal Science Seminar 3. | 1 |
Animal Science Seminar 3. Terms offered: Fall 2025, Winter 2026 One of two seminars to be given by all students in a Ph.D. program. Review of literature in relation to the student's proposed research and an experimental design of the research to be conducted. | ||
| ANSC 798 | Animal Science Seminar 4. | 1 |
Animal Science Seminar 4. Terms offered: Fall 2025, Winter 2026 One of two seminars to be given by all students in a Ph.D. program. Presentation of a current scientific topic which is not related to the student's research. The topic for the presentation should be cleared by the thesis supervisor. | ||
| COMP 616D1 | Bioinformatics Seminar. | 1.5 |
Bioinformatics Seminar. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Introduction to current trends in Bioinformatics and closely related fields such as genomics and proteomics. | ||
| COMP 616D2 | Bioinformatics Seminar. | 1.5 |
Bioinformatics Seminar. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. See COMP 616D1 for description. | ||
Complementary Courses (6 credits)
Additional courses at the 500, 600, or 700 level may be required at the discretion of the candidate's supervisory committee.
Two courses chosen from the following:
| Course | Title | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| BINF 621 | Bioinformatics: Molecular Biology. | 3 |
Bioinformatics: Molecular Biology. Terms offered: Winter 2026 The main problems related to the analysis of biological sequences (sequence comparison, homology, gene annotation, phylogenetic inference, comparative genomics) and the computational approaches (dynamic programming algorithms, Blast heuristics, hidden Markov models, Bayesian statistics). | ||
| BMDE 652 | Bioinformatics: Proteomics. | 3 |
Bioinformatics: Proteomics. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Overview of high-throughput proteomic technologies commonly employed to study the localization and function of all proteins in an organism, and the bioinformatic approaches to analyze raw data and deposit them in proteome databases. | ||
| BTEC 555 | Structural Bioinformatics. | 3 |
Structural Bioinformatics. Terms offered: Winter 2026 Fundamentals of protein structure and the application of tools for structure determination, how protein structure allows us to understand the complex biological functions, and how knowledge of protein structure can contribute to drug discovery. | ||
| COMP 618 | Bioinformatics: Functional Genomics. | 3 |
Bioinformatics: Functional Genomics. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Techniques related to microarrays (normalization, differential expression, class prediction, class discovery), the analysis of non-coding sequence data (identification of transcription factor binding sites), single nucleotide polymorphisms, the inference of biological networks, and integrative Bioinformatics approaches. | ||
| PHGY 603 | Systems Biology and Biophysics. | 3 |
Systems Biology and Biophysics. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Introduction to classical and current topics in biophysics and systems biology in order to model the control of gene expression and intracellular signal transduction, as well as gene spread in populations. | ||