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General Science · Year 3 · Advanced sciences
S6 The universe, quantum chemistry and systems biology
Apply the tools of physics, chemistry and statistics at three great scales: the universe, the molecule and living systems.
202hours of coursework
21weeks at 10 h
4steps
16new courses
4universities
Target skills
- Astronomy, galaxies and cosmology
- Density functional theory and electronic structure calculations
- Genomic technologies, Python, command-line tools, Bioconductor and genomic statistics
- Systems biology: experimental methods, networks and dynamical models
Semester project
The final project: the Systems Biology capstone, extended with a dynamical model of a biological network (differential equations) fitted to public data.
Courses this semester
- 1University of CambridgeBeginner
Show the 3 courses
Course Level Length Rating (reviews) An Introduction to Astronomy Beginner 9 h — Extra-Galactic Astronomy Intermediate 8 h — Cosmology Intermediate 11 h — - 2École PolytechniqueAdvanced
Stated prerequisites: Basic quantum mechanics
- 3Johns Hopkins UniversityIntermediatePython, R, Bioconductor, Unix
Stated prerequisites: Some statistics, computer science and biology background (helpful, not required)
Show the 6 courses
Course Level Length Rating (reviews) Introduction to Genomic Technologies — 6 h 4.6 (4,901) Python for Genomic Data Science — 8 h 4.3 (1,830) Algorithms for DNA Sequencing Beginner 12 h 4.7 (938) Command Line Tools for Genomic Data Science — 12 h 4.0 (578) Bioconductor for Genomic Data Science — 9 h 3.8 (388) Statistics for Genomic Data Science — 9 h 4.2 (383) - 4Icahn School of Medicine at Mount SinaiIntermediateR, MATLAB
Stated prerequisites: College-level cell and molecular biology, basic statistics and calculus
Show the 6 courses
Course Level Length Rating (reviews) Introduction to Systems Biology — 19 h 4.3 (577) Experimental Methods in Systems Biology — 18 h 4.5 (317) Network Analysis in Systems Biology Intermediate 30 h 4.5 (204) Dynamical Modeling Methods for Systems Biology — 19 h 4.7 (223) Integrated Analysis in Systems Biology — 4 h 4.6 (87) Systems Biology and Biotechnology Capstone — 2 h 4.5 (13)
Reading
Cosmology (lecture notes)David Tong, CambridgeCambridge lecture notes for Cambridge's Coursera specialization.Free notes
Density Functional Theory: A Practical Introduction, 2nd editionDavid S. Sholl, Janice A. Steckel (Wiley)The standard practical introduction for the École Polytechnique course.Paid book
Computational Genomics with RAltuna AkalinFor the Bioconductor and statistics courses of Genomic Data Science.Free online, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
An Introduction to Systems Biology: Design Principles of Biological Circuits, 2nd editionUri Alon (CRC Press)The classic of systems biology: network motifs and genetic circuits.Paid book
Things to watch
- Density Functional Theory is rated Advanced and assumes the quantum mechanics of S5.
- Astronomy and Cosmology has just opened and has no reviews yet.
- Systems Biology uses R and MATLAB; Genomic Data Science uses Python, R and Unix.
With Coursera Plus
This semester takes 202 hours, about 5 months at 10 hours a week. A Coursera Plus subscription gives access to most of its courses during that time.