Summary

The place of microarray data analysis in current research in the life sciences in outlined in the talk 'Microarrays: their design and use'. (Tomlinson, C.R. (2009). As in the introductory talk, this course focuses on microarray analysis in the context of modelling for a systems approach to biology. Course participants will work through practical examples using maxdview, a visualisation environment for microarray data from The University of Manchester, and/or Bioconductor.

The course is designed to be taken either as a stand-alone course for those already working with microarrays, or as a final module for those working towards a formal qualification in bioinformatics or systems biology. In the context of a full programme, the module links to the earlier module Bioinformatics for Systems Biology.

Learning Outcomes

The course is divided into five main sections:

• Microarrays and experimental design
• Data capture and preliminary checks
• Data analysis
• 2-channel data
• Gene Class Tests

Assessment

The assessment methods:

• There will be an assessed tutorial exercise for each section of the course. These exercises will be brief: they are included as one means of maintaining a dialogue between all those participating in the course.
• There will be two further written assessments. At the discretion of the examiners, you may also be required to attend a viva voce examination.

Course Material, Learning and Teaching Processes

All the course materials are provided within the Moodle virtual learning environment (VLE). The tools provided will allow you to navigate and search through the course textbook, practical exercises and references to other useful texts and URLs. The course textbook is provided as a set of web pages. It will be used to provide the necessary background to the focus of the course, which is problem-based learning.

You will interact with the members of the course team, and with other learners, through course bulletin boards. Our students and graduates can use the programme bulletin boards after a course has ended, so we now have a large and supportive online community.

Required Time per Week 8–10 hours