At the Illinois Institute of Technology, the Bioinformatics major blends courses in biology, chemistry, and physics with courses in programming, statistics, and other methods, producing graduates who are both strong in science, and strong in the ability to develop and use tools to process data to advance knowledge of science.

Our program is scientifically rigorous, particularly in the physical sciences, while providing students with in-demand programming and other skills. It features a solid, balanced offering in STEM courses, while other programs may be more biased in one direction (biology) or the other (computer science).

Courses include programming in Perl, C++ and Java; data structure and algorithms; data mining; statistics; human biology; genetics; genomics and transcriptomics; and more. See below.

Students can choose from two tracks:

• Applied Bioinformatics has more required and elective courses in computer science.
• Computational Biology has more required and elective courses in biology.

Most bioinformatics positions require an advanced degree. The Illinois Tech major helps to prepare students for graduate school as well as for entry-level technical positions.

Our program strengths:

• Courses from biology, applied mathematics, and computer science departments
• Strong science and technology fundamentals
• Research opportunities for select students
• Program head Jean-François Pombert, assistant professor of biology, whose expertise includes comparative genomics, computational biology/bioinformatics, and high-throughput DNA sequencing.
• Illinois Tech’s traditional strengths in technology and new Center for Interdisciplinary Scientific Computing (CISC)