Professional Science Master's in Bioinformatics and Biological Data Science
Develop expertise in the various software tools that help you identify, interpret and analyze biological data with the Professional Science Master's in Bioinformatics in Temple’s College of Science and Technology. This 30-credit-hour graduate degree is ideal for those who are currently working or seeking positions in the biotechnology, healthcare or pharmaceutical industries. Since classes are offered at night, it is flexible enough to fit your busy schedule while providing an advanced, professional development-focused graduate curriculum. Through the program, you’ll develop a deep understanding of computer programming, genomics and structural biology.
The Bioinformatics and Biological Data Science PSM program integrates biology, chemistry, computer science, physics and statistics to investigate solutions to biological problems. Not only will you understand the computational and statistical methods used to analyze or discover data involving biochemistry, biophysics and genomics, you’ll be able to communicate them succinctly and effectively. Coursework includes
- ethics in bioinformatics, which examines the legal, privacy and social issues of using computational approaches to large data sets;
- scripting languages, which focus on the scripting languages and operating environments used in scientific computing; and
- structural bioinformatics, which studies protein structure analysis and methods building probabilistic models of sequence ensembles.
With opportunities for research in one of Temple’s many state-of-the-art facilities or an internship at a local biotechnology company, the Bioinformatics PSM helps position you for career advancement with real-world experience in this rapidly growing field.
Program Requirements
To earn the Bioinformatics PSM, students must successfully complete a final capstone project, which involves either
- an internship with a local biotechnology, healthcare or pharmaceutical company or
- research in the College of Science and Technology labs, under the guidance of a student’s program principal investigator.
Internships focus on one of three specializations, including
- computational bioinformatics,
- genomes/genomics or
- structural bioinformatics.
Coursework for the Bioinformatics and Biological Data Science PSM must be completed within two years, on either a part-time or full-time basis. Learn more about the program requirements for the Bioinformatics PSM.