Master of Science in Bioinformatics

  Admission requirements | Study programme | Studying abroad | Assets | Career prospects| Registration fee | More information | Application

Fact sheet

The Master's

Bioinformaticians are distinguished by their ability to formulate biologically relevant questions, to design and implement the appropriate solution by managing and analysing high-throughput molecular biological and sequence data, and to interpret the obtained results.

This interdisciplinary two-year programme focuses on acquiring 1) basic background knowledge in diverse disciplines belonging to the field of bioinformatics, including statistics, molecular biology and computer science, 2) expert knowledge in the field of bioinformatics, 3) programming skills, and 4) engineering skills. The 120-credit programme consists of a reorientation package (one semester), a common package (two semesters) and a major.

Admission requirements

To the definitive admission requirements
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Study programme

• A reorientation package (max. 27 credits). This package includes strengthening courses to equip you for the basic requirements of the core package. The steering committee of the MSc programme will tailor the content of the reorientation package to each individual student, based on his/her educational background.
• A common package. The general package builds upon the elementary knowledge and skills students have gained in their previous studies and in the reorientation package and integrates these into various bioinformatics courses. All students complete this package in its entirety.
• A major (equivalent to one semester, to be started at the beginning of the second year). This specialised package comprises an original research task in an academic or company setting, guided by a supervisor. It results in the public defence of an MSc thesis.

To a detailed overview of the programme

After obtaining a PhD in bioinformatics, I had the opportunity to found a new start-up company, Silicos. Being a co-founder of the company, I have a direct impact on the decision-making processes and this increased my involvement and dedication. My job is very challenging and inspiring since it is inherently interdisciplinary, which fits nicely with the idea of bioinformatics. Given my background in mathematical engineering, my main responsibility is the development of the in-house drug discovery platform. This ranges from setting up the infrastructure to doing computations and from developing new state-of-the-art algorithms to maintaining customer contacts. Currently, I am working both on internal projects and fee-for-service projects for our customers where I can apply my bioinformatics expertise to provide pragmatic solutions.
- A Belgian graduate with a background in engineering and currently working at Silicos

Studying abroad

All students are given the opportunity to conduct part of their Master’s thesis research at a partner institution or organisation abroad. In addition, European residents may undertake their Master’s thesis research at a European university within the framework of the Erasmus programme.

Assets

There is a wide consensus that bioinformatics and bioinformaticians will play a prominent role in science and industry. Recent major scientific and technological breakthroughs in molecular biology, together with the impressive revolution in hardware technology, have drastically changed the way of thinking in life sciences research and biotechnology. The application of high-throughput technologies (genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, interactomics, etc.) has led to the mapping of the DNA sequence of complete genomes in a short time, analysis of the expression of thousands of genes or proteins simultaneously, evaluation of the nature and concentration of all metabolites and identification of the interactions between these different genetic entities. Although the final objective of molecular biology – i.e. “acquiring insight in the functioning and evolution of organisms” – has remained the same, the way to reach this goal has drastically changed. We have entered the era of “systems biology”. An organism is treated as a system and information on all its molecular levels is gathered simultaneously. This new approach involves extensive quantitative and integrated analysis of complex data. This is exactly where the discipline “bioinformatics” comes to the forefront. Bioinformatics is defined as the science and technology of handling high-throughput molecular biological information in order to infer new biological insights in diverse applications (industrial, biomedical, ecological ...). This MSc is an interfaculty programme jointly organised by the Faculty of Bioscience Engineering, the Faculty of Engineering, the Faculty of Science and the Faculty of Medicine at KU Leuven.

Career prospects

Bioinformaticians find careers in the “life sciences” domain in the broadest sense: industry, the academic world, health care, etc. The expanding need for bioinformatics in biological and medical research ensures a large variety of job opportunities in fundamental and applied research. 60% of our graduates start a PhD after graduation.

I am a consultant of Altran Europe. I like this job because it allows me to work as a solution provider in diverse domains. My bioinformatics background allows me to work as a specialist for R&D challenges of bioinformatics in the pharmaceutical sector. Besides as a bioinformatician, I also work as a statistician, a data miner, and a project manager.
- A Chinese graduate with a background in engineering and currently working at Altran Europe

Registration fee

To the definitive registration fees

More information

If you have other questions, contact:

KU Leuven
Faculty of Bioscience Engineering
tel. + 32 16 32 17 44
International.MSc.Programme@biw.kuleuven.be

Application