The master on "Computational Biotechnology" is an official master degree granted by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science. It is a science-oriented master focused on the analysis of biological data in a biotechnology environment. The master takes 90 ECTS imparted in 1.5 years (60 ECTS in the first year + 30 ECTS in the second year). The last 15 ECTS correspond to a master thesis that must be done under the supervision of a group leader in a Research Center or company. Classes are given in the afternoon from Monday to Friday so that attending to classes is compatible with a part-time job. Professors have been carefully selected from scientific groups of relevant Spanish research institutes and universities. Students will be submitted to a equally thorough selection process since a 6.5 out of 10 points are going to be necessary  to pass each subject and students will be able to take a course only twice.

Available documents:

• PowerPoint presentation of the Master

• Article about Computational Biotechnology

• Summary document about the Master

• Spanish flyer of the Master

• English flyer of the Master

The objective of this master is to provide technological as well as biotechnological professionals with the necessary background for solving data analysis problems in biotechnology. The master carefully balances the biotechnological studies with the technical ones. The master is focused on the practical aspects of the problem and all courses have practices either on a wet lab or a computer. 

The master presumes a set of skills already acquired during the graduate program (either coming from the biological side or the technical side). These skills are specialized to the particular case of data analysis in biotechnology. This specialization allows the student successfully finishing the master to develop new ideas and methodologies in an industry with a high level of research and development. Moreover, the student will acquire the capability of facing new problems and looking for both already existing solutions and solutions completely new. All this, taking into account the ethical aspects derived from this sensible technology. The student must develop during the master the ability to communicate his results and skills to a specialist as well as non-specialist audience.

The master is organized in 6 modules: 1 for student's background adaptation, 2 for biotechnology, 2 for data analysis, and 1 for bioinformatics. The adaptation module is aimed to complement during 7 weeks the student's background in the discipline (biology or computer science) that is not her major. Therefore, a student must follow either the biotechnological adaptation or the computational adaptation. The rest of the modules are taken by all students.

Module 1A. Biotechnological adaptation                         (10 ECTS)
BT0.1.- Adaptation 1                                            (6 ECTS)
BT0.2.- Adaptation 2                                            (4 ECTS)

Module 1B. Computational adaptation                            (10 ECTS)
DA0.1.- Adaptation 1                                            (6 ECTS)
DA0.2.- Adaptation 2                                            (4 ECTS)

Module 2. Data Analysis 1                                      (14 ECTS)
DA1.1.- Statistical inference, Regression and Experiment design (5 ECTS)
DA1.2.- Multivariate data analysis                              (3 ECTS)
DA1.3.- Bayesian networks                                       (3 ECTS)
DA1.4.- Neural networks                                         (3 ECTS)

Module 3. Biotechnology 1                                      (14 ECTS)
BT1.1.- Molecular biology and Recombinant DNA technology        (5 ECTS)
BT1.2.- Sequencing, genotyping and transcriptomics              (3 ECTS)
BT1.3.- Proteomics                                              (3 ECTS)
BT1.4.- Metabolomics                                            (3 ECTS)

Module 4. Data analysis 2                                      (11 ECTS)
DA2.1.- Classification and clustering                           (5 ECTS)
DA2.2.- Dynamic models                                          (3 ECTS)
DA2.3.- Associative rules, logic networks and grammars          (3 ECTS)

Module 5. Biotechnology 2                                      (11 ECTS)
BT2.1.- Structural biology and protein engineering              (3 ECTS)
BT2.2.- Biotechnology                                           (4 ECTS)
BT2.3.- Synthetic and systems biology                           (4 ECTS)

Module 6. Bioinformatics                                       (15 ECTS)
BI.1.- Bioinformatic databases and literature analysis          (3 ECTS)
BI.2.- DNA, protein and structure analysis                      (7 ECTS)
BI.3.- Interaction networks and arrays analysis                 (5 ECTS)

Master thesis                                                  (15 ECTS)

Click here for a more detailed program

For economical aids, please, visit this page and this one from the Spanish Ministry of Education and this page from the Instituto de Crédito Oficial.