Bioinformatics Five Year Program
About the BS/MS Program
This accelerated program facilitates the completion of both the BS and MS in Bioinformatics in just 5 years (in comparison to the 6 years required to pursue the BS and MS separately). Students apply during the spring of their Junior year. The MS component of this program includes two tracks: Non-thesis (internship-based) and Thesis (research based).
Loyola's BS/MS Bioinformatics Program will prepare you with:
- a solid foundation in biological, computational, chemical, and statistical concepts and theory;
- the facility to interpret primary scientific literature;
- the capacity to employ statistical and computational methods to investigate and solve problems within the life sciences;
- the ability to conduct bioinformatics study in industry and/or the research environment; and
- science-related oral and written communication skills.
Application Information
Applicants must be a declared BS Bioinformatics major and be in junior standing (based upon credit hours earned) at the time of applying. Applications are accepted each spring semester through Loyola's online system. Only applications submitted through this system by the deadline will be considered by the admissions committee. Applications are due March 15.
In addition to the credit hour requirement, candidates for admission must meet the following criteria:
- Minimum cumulative GPA of at least 3.3 for all coursework at Loyola
- Minimum 3.5 GPA in at least five courses in the Bioinformatics major, three of which must be at the 300 level
Students are strongly encouraged to have completed Bioinformatics (BIOL 388) prior to applying.
Application Materials:
- two letters of recommendation,
- a current resume/ curriculum vitae, and
- a brief (500-1000) statement of purpose including intended track and Faculty labs of interest for potential Thesis students.
Curriculum
The following courses are required as part of the BS Bioinformatics and MS Bioinformatics degrees.
BIOI 565 Exploring Proteins or CHEM 465 Proteomics (3 credits) * REQUIRED [BS+MS credit]
BIOL 390 Molecular Biology Lab (4 credits)
COMP 353 Database Programming or COMP 379 Machine Learning (3 credits)
BIOL 388 Bioinformatics (3 credits)
BIOL 387 Genomics or BIOL 392 Metagenomics (3 credits)
COMP 483 Computational Biology (4 credits) [BS+MS credit]
STAT 437 Quantitative Bioinformatics (3 credits) [BS+MS credit]
BIOI 397 Bioinformatics Survey or BIOI 398 Bioinformatics
Internship or BIOI 399 Bioinformatics Research (1+ credit)
BIOL 101 General Biology (3 credits)
BIOL 282 Genetics (3 credits)
BIOL 283 Genetics Lab (3 credits)
CHEM 101 General Chemistry A (3 credits)
CHEM 102 General Chemistry B (3 credits)
CHEM 223 Organic Chemistry A (3 credits)
CHEM 224 Organic Chemistry B (3 credits)
CHEM 361 Biochemistry (3 credits)
COMP 141 Intro to Computing Tools (3 credit hours)
MATH 215 Intro to Programming (3 credit hours)
COMP 231 Data Structures & Algorithms (3 credit hours)
MATH 131 Applied Calculus I (3 credits)
MATH 132 Applied Calculus II (3 credits)
STAT 335 Intro to Biostatistics (3 credits)
BIOI 500 Advanced Bioinformatics (3 credits)
BIOI 501 Bioinformatics Seminar (1 credit)
+ 2 BIOI Electives (6 credits total)
Required courses within the major also satisfy the following university Core Curriculum requirements: scientific literacy (6 credits) and quantitative analysis (3 credits).
Sample Course Schedules
These course schedules display how students may complete the bioinformatics major in addition to their university Core requirements in four years of study:
