About

Graduate studies in Bioinformatics (BI) at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) equip PhD students with the skills and knowledge in applied mathematics, informatics, statistics, computer science, physics, chemistry, and biology needed to study biological composition, structure, function, and evolution at the molecular, cellular, and systems levels. Students are involved with gathering, storing, analyzing, predicting, and disseminating the corresponding information. The goal of the BI pathway is to train the next generation of bioinformatics researchers for academia and industry.

The Bioinformatics pathway focuses on three research areas:

1. Bioinformatics and computational biology
2. Genetics and genomics
3. Systems biology

Within the curriculum, core courses provide training in bioinformatics, algorithms, and statistics with optional courses in macromolecular structures, cellular biophysics, and computation of biological molecules.

Our program faculty members come from a variety of fields that employ biophysical and computational techniques.

The BI pathway also offers two optional designated emphases in:

1. Computational Biology and Bioinformatics (CBBI).
2. Complex Biological Systems (CBS).

The Biological and Medical Informatics Graduate Program, of which the Bioinformatics curriculum pathway is a part, is one of 23 graduate programs at UCSF, 17 of which offer a PhD. It is set within the interdisciplinary education environment for which UCSF is so well known, and is physically located on UCSF’s contemporary research campus in the Mission Bay district of San Francisco. Our alumni work primarily in academia and industry.