BMS2062: Introduction to Bioinformatics

This unit was the easiest of the BMS units this semester. Despite this, some students found it incredibly boring during the lectures (me), which made it more difficult to study.

The lectures of this unit, while being well-delivered, were pretty boring. It isn't a fault of the lecturers however that the content they are teaching is try. Most of the many lecturers are able to communicate the information concisely and bring some life into the content. As there are only 2 lectures a week, there are only 23 lectures to study for the exam, which is nice.

Like most BMS and science units, your lab grades depend heavily on the TA marking your labwork. If you TA is a harsh marker, then you're in a bad spot. Despite this, it is not difficult to get high scores (90+) in the labs. The labs are weekly exercises on computers, involving completing scientific analysis of whatever you're studying that week. They will also consolidate the content covered within the lectures. The first 6 or so labs are dry, because they're covering mostly DNA sequences. The rest are enjoyable, involving the observation and interaction of protein tertiary structure, using the program Pymol.

Within the labs are the Disease Protein assignment. Students are allocated a protein randomly. Each protein has an associated disease. For example, mine was Factor IX, relating to the disease Haemophilia B. Like almost all university units, your grades on this report depend on whether the TA marking your work is a harsh marker. While my work was marked nicely, some students had issues with tough markers.

The final exam for the unit was not difficult. Studying the content should guarantee a D or HD on the exam.
Overall, despite the average content, this unit was well-organized, delivered and taught. Plus, getting a high score isn't too difficult.

Not that I know of.

4 out of 5

The lectures were good enough to make textbooks redundant. However, Lehninger probably covers everything in the unit.

2016, Sem 2

87 - HD