Bioinformatics M.S. Degree

Please note: Applications are not being accepted currently.

Program overview

The Bioinformatics M.S. program at the University of Illinois is designed to satisfy the demands of a highly interdisciplinary and rapidly evolving field. The program is offered through a unique partnership that currently involves four colleges and five participating departments and schools. The Bioinformatics M.S. program is owned by the Graduate College and operated, in a franchise-like fashion, by the participating units that offer concentrations in the M.S. in Bioinformatics. A Bioinformatics Steering Committee that reports to the Dean of the Graduate College guarantees a common core and uniform program quality across departmental options.

Top five reasons to join the program

This is a truly interdisciplinary program that has been developed by four participating colleges and five departments/schools. As such, it exposes students to all aspects of bioinformatics and leads to a broader knowledge of the field.
Faculty mentors and instructors at the University of Illinois come with internationally recognized expertise. Students will have the opportunity to participate in cutting edge research projects in all aspects of bioinformatics and related fields, including molecular biology, computer science, statistics, engineering, and health informatics. University research centers in this area include the Center for Biophysics and Computational Biology and an NIH Resource for Macromolecular Modeling and Bioinformatics.
The campus offers state-of-the-art experimental bioinformatics facilities, including those in the Keck Center for Comparative and Functional Genomics and the $75 million, 186,000-square feet Institute for Genomic Biology.
The National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), located at the university, offers opportunities for accessing, developing, and experimenting with state-of-the-art computational facilities for bioinformatics.
The University of Illinois provides a comprehensive set of graduate courses in life sciences, computer and mathematical sciences, and engineering, with more than 100 courses that can be used as technical electives for this program.

Program requirements

The degree is offered in both thesis and non-thesis options. For the thesis option, a minimum of 32 hours are required, including a minimum of 28 hours of course work (the standard one-semester graduate course at the University of Illinois is a four-hour course). For the non-thesis option, a minimum of 36 hours are required. For either option, at least 12 hours must be taken at the advanced graduate level. In addition, a minimum of 12 hours must be taken from courses approved for degree credit in each of three core bioinformatics areas:

Fundamental bioinformatics (courses in genomics, proteomics, bioinformatics, and computational biology).
Biology (courses in general biochemistry and cell biology).
Computer Science (courses in database systems and combinatorial algorithms).

Courses that satisfy these requirements are listed.

Degree requirements

Students entering this degree program through the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering department must be admitted by the department and subsequently satisfy the campus-wide Bioinformatics M.S. degree requirements as well as departmental requirements.

The campus-wide degree is offered in both thesis and non-thesis options. For the thesis option, a minimum of 32 hours are required, including a minimum of 28 hours of course work (the standard one-semester graduate course at the University of Illinois is a four-hour course). For the non-thesis option, a minimum of 36 hours are required. For either option, at least 12 hours must be taken at the advanced graduate level. In addition, a minimum of 12 hours must be taken from courses approved for degree credit in each of three core bioinformatics areas:

Fundamental bioinformatics (courses in genomics, proteomics, bioinformatics, and computational biology).
Biology (courses in general biochemistry and cell biology).
Computer Science (courses in database systems and combinatorial algorithms).

Courses that satisfy these requirements are listed. In addition to the above campus-wide requirements, students that enter the program through the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering are required to take:

CHBE 572: Metabolic systems engineering (four hours);
CHBE 580: Laboratory techniques in bioinformatics (two hours).

Prerequisites

The minimal undergraduate background needed to enter the core courses of the program is:

Five hours of molecular and cell biology;
Nine hours of general and organic undergraduate chemistry;
19 hours of mathematics and statistics;
Three hours of introduction to computing.

An additional four hours in data structures and software principles are highly recommended. Students with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering normally have the minimum background needed to enter the core courses. Students from other engineering disciplines typically come with only eight hours of undergraduate chemistry, in which case they will be required to take an organic chemistry course before they enter the core courses. In general, students entering the program must ensure that they satisfy these prerequisites or take remedial courses.

Financial support

No financial support is provided to students in this program.

Admission process

Students interested in this program must apply for admission to one of the participating departments/units:

Apply to this program

To apply to this program, see Graduate Admissions Requirements and Procedures.