Plant Science (Thesis): Bioinformatics (M.Sc.) (45 credits)
Offered by: Plant Science (Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences)
Degree: Master of Science
Program credit weight: 45
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 Courses (36 credits)
| Course | Title | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| PLNT 664 | M.Sc. Thesis 1. | 12 |
M.Sc. Thesis 1. Terms offered: Fall 2025, Winter 2026 Written and oral presentation of thesis proposal to the research supervisory committee. | ||
| PLNT 665 | M.Sc. Thesis 2. | 12 |
M.Sc. Thesis 2. Terms offered: Fall 2025, Winter 2026 Oral presentation of a proposal to the department and progress report on the thesis research project to the supervisory committee. | ||
| PLNT 667 | MSc Thesis 3A. | 12 |
MSc Thesis 3A. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Preparation and submission of an acceptable thesis. | ||
Required Invitational Seminar
| Course | Title | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| PLNT 690 | Research Horizons in Plant Science 1. | 0 |
Research Horizons in Plant Science 1. Terms offered: Fall 2025, Winter 2026 A series of seminars presented by invited speakers, staff and senior graduate students. The topics are selected to integrate the many fields of plant science. | ||
Required Courses (3 credits)
| Course | Title | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| 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. | ||
| PLNT 691 | Research Horizons in Plant Science 2. | 0 |
Research Horizons in Plant Science 2. Terms offered: Fall 2025, Winter 2026 A series of seminars presented by invited speakers, staff and senior graduate students. The topics are selected to integrate the many fields of plant science. | ||
Complementary Courses (6 credits)
- Additional courses at the 500 or 600 level may be required at the discretion of the candidate's advisory committee.
- Chosen from the following:
| Course | Title | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| BINF 511 | Bioinformatics for Genomics. | 3 |
Bioinformatics for Genomics. Terms offered: Winter 2026 Bioinformatics methods and reasoning in relation to genomics, proteomics and metabolomics strategies with an emphasis on functional genomics data. The course will cover introduction to UNIX, Perl programming, data processing and integration, file parsing, relational database design and implementation, angled towards solutions relevant for genomics. | ||
| 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. | ||