BIO621 - Computational and Systems Biology I - Home Page

Instructor: Asscociate Prof. Vasilis J Promponas. promponas.vasileios@ucy.ac.cy

Description/Goals

This 13-week course aims to introduce students in the Cellular and Molecular Life Sciences MSc & PhD programmes with foundational knowledge of principles applied in the growing fields of Computational and Systems Biology, following a practical, problem-solving approach.

This course is practice-driven and aims to:

Build computational thinking for biologists
Introduce fundamental biological questions which can be addressed via computation for non-biologists
Develop skills for enabling the creation of reproducible analysis pipelines/software tools in Python
Connect algorithms with real biological questions
Prepare students to independently analyze different types of biological data (e.g. sequence, omics and structural biology data)

This course is taught in English and is available to ERASMUS+/YUFE students.

General Information

Meetings for this class are organized as follows:

Lectures: Monday and Thursday, 18.00-19.30 (Computer Lab 010 - Building FPAS2).

Tutorials/Practicals: Wednesday, 16.00-17.00 (Computer Lab 010 - Building FPAS2).

Class web: Class material on the web can be accessed at the

Class web page @github.io: https://vprobon.github.io/BIO621/ (this page)

Teams group (BIO621-Spring2026) [only students enrolled in BIO621 have access]

Final “exam”: details (e.g. date, room etc) will be arranged by the Academic Affairs and Student Welfare Service (AASWS) of the University of Cyprus (https://ucyweb.ucy.ac.cy/fmweb/en/exams-schedule).

Note: According to the UCY regulations class attendance is obligatory.

Weekly structure:

3h (i.e. 2 × 1.5) lecture-style practical sessions
1 × 1h tutorial / hands-on / troubleshooting session

Compute environment: Google Colab (Python, Jupyter notebooks). You will need a valid Google email (Gmail) account to access this service.

Course philosophy

Each topic includes:

Short conceptual intro
Live coding / guided notebooks
Structured exercises
Open-ended extensions

Course assessment

We follow continuous assessment through short quizes (each session), midterm and final projects (half term/final projects)
We aim at ensuring all students gradually build the skill-set necessary for being able to apply the material handled in class in real-life settings (e.g., research or work environments), thus critical thinking and application of good practices are important (not mere memorization!!).

Content and Schedule

Assessment

Teaching material

Code of conduct

Communication/Contact

Bioinformatics Research Laboratory @UCY 2005-2026.