An applied Swiss-inspired curriculum combining algorithmic rigour, systems architecture, digital trust and practical engineering capability for modern technology leaders.
The MSc in Computational Biology at Brookfield School of Computing is engineered to provide deep competency across core computer science, systems design, and targeted domain applications. Students develop fluency in software craftsmanship, distributed architectures, algorithm optimization, and data governance.
Instruction balances rigorous theoretical foundations with practical code repositories, laboratory simulations, and ethical technology review aligned with modern international computing standards.
| Code | Module Title | Type | Discipline & Learning Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|
| BIO711 | Computational Molecular Biology & Genomic Data Science in Computational Biology | Theory | Evaluate high-throughput sequencing technologies, Burrows-Wheeler alignment, variant calling and phylogenetics. |
| BIO712 | Bioinformatics Pipelines & High-Throughput Sequence Lab | Practical | Construct automated genomic pipelines using Nextflow, Snakemake, SAMtools and GATK on high-performance compute clusters. |
| BIO713 | Biomedical Data Standards, Interoperability & FHIR Architectures | Theory | Model clinical information models, HL7 FHIR resource schemas, LOINC, SNOMED CT and OMOP common data models. |
| BIO714 | FHIR Server Implementation & Clinical Data Integration Lab | Practical | Deploy HL7 FHIR REST servers, transform raw EHR data into standardized FHIR bundles and query patient cohorts. |
| BIO715 | Statistical Genetics, Genome-Wide Association (GWAS) & Linkage | Theory | Formulate logistic regression for case-control GWAS, linkage disequilibrium, Bonferroni corrections and polygenic scores. |
| BIO716 | GWAS Data Analysis & Statistical Genetics Studio (PLINK) | Practical | Execute quality control, population stratification PCA and association testing on large genetic datasets using PLINK. |
| BIO717 | Empirical Clinical Research Methodology, Biostatistics & Trials | Theory | Design randomized clinical trials, survival analysis (Kaplan-Meier, Cox proportional hazards) and power calculations. |
| BIO718 | Medical Image Processing Lab (DICOM / ITK / 3D Slicer) | Practical | Preprocess DICOM CT and MRI scans, apply intensity normalization, spatial registration and 3D segmentation masks. |
| BIO719 | Swiss & Global Health Data Privacy, Ethics & Medical Device Law | Theory | Examine the Swiss Human Research Act, GDPR health privacy, HIPAA regulations and EU Medical Device Regulation (MDR). |
| Code | Module Title | Type | Discipline & Learning Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|
| BIO721 | Deep Learning in Medical Imaging & Diagnostic Radiology in Computational Biology | Theory | Evaluate 3D convolutional networks (UNet), vision transformers and attention mechanisms for anatomical lesion detection. |
| BIO722 | Medical Image Segmentation & Diagnostic Deep Learning Studio | Practical | Train and validate 3D UNet models for tumor segmentation on volumetric MRI scans using PyTorch and MONAI. |
| BIO723 | Structural Bioinformatics, Protein Folding & AlphaFold Modeling | Theory | Deconstruct protein tertiary structure prediction, evolutionary co-variance, Evoformer blocks and molecular docking. |
| BIO724 | Molecular Docking & Computational Drug Discovery Workshop | Practical | Execute molecular dynamics simulations and virtual screening docking campaigns using AutoDock Vina and PyMOL. |
| BIO725 | Electronic Health Records (EHR) Data Mining & Natural Language Processing | Theory | Analyze clinical information extraction from clinical notes using medical transformers (ClinicalBERT) and BioMedNLP. |
| BIO726 | Clinical NLP & Information Extraction Studio | Practical | Fine-tune clinical language models to extract named entities, adverse drug events and diagnosis codes from hospital notes. |
| BIO727 | Digital Therapeutics, Remote Patient Monitoring & Wearable IoT | Theory | Architect physiological signal processing pipelines (PPG, ECG), artifact rejection and wearable telemetry security. |
| BIO728 | Biosignal Processing & Time-Series Anomaly Detection Lab | Practical | Process raw continuous ECG/EEG sensor streams, extract spectral features and detect arrhythmias using neural networks. |
| BIO729 | Enterprise Health Tech Case Study & Collaborative System Design | Practical | Deliver a clinical decision support or digital health architecture design addressing an authentic healthcare challenge in Computational Biology. |
| Code | Module Title | Type | Discipline & Learning Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|
| BIO731 | Frontiers in Multi-Omics Integration & Precision Oncology | Theory | Critically assess single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq), spatial transcriptomics and multi-modal patient stratification. |
| BIO732 | Single-Cell RNA-seq & Spatial Transcriptomics Lab (Scanpy) | Practical | Analyze single-cell gene expression datasets, perform dimensionality reduction (UMAP) and annotate cell types in Scanpy. |
| BIO733 | Strategic Healthcare IT Leadership, Clinical Systems & Hospital Agility | Theory | Formulate hospital digital transformation roadmaps, clinical stakeholder management and health system IT budgets. |
| BIO734 | Clinical Decision Support Systems (CDSS) & Rule Engine Lab | Practical | Implement real-time clinical alert rules, CDS Hooks and FHIR integration for automated guideline adherence. |
| BIO735 | Federated Learning in Healthcare & Patient Privacy Preservation | Theory | Evaluate federated learning for multi-hospital collaboration without patient data sharing, DP and secure enclaves. |
| BIO736 | MSc Computational Biology Thesis Proposal Colloquium & Defense | Practical | Author and defend a formal scientific master's research proposal specifying clinical or bioinformatic datasets. |
| BIO737 | Commercializing Health Technologies, Biotech Patents & Clinical Trials | Theory | Examine medical software commercialization, FDA/CE mark regulatory clearance pathways and biotech venture funding. |
| BIO738 | Pre-Thesis Health Tech Prototyping & Pilot Lab | Practical | Construct initial experimental bioinformatic pipelines or diagnostic models and gather preliminary validation metrics. |
| BIO739 | Clinical Engagement & Real-World Health Dataset Validation | Practical | Validate computational pipelines against retrospective, anonymized clinical datasets under strict regulatory bounds. |
| Code | Module Title | Type | Discipline & Learning Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|
| BIO741 | MSc Computational Biology Dissertation: Empirical Methodology & Clinical Protocol Design | Practical | Formulate the empirical research design, cohort selection criteria and ethical validation protocols in Computational Biology. |
| BIO742 | MSc Computational Biology Dissertation: Computational System Engineering & Model Design | Practical | Engineer the complete bioinformatic pipeline, diagnostic algorithm or digital health platform in Computational Biology. |
| BIO743 | MSc Computational Biology Dissertation: Clinical Validation & Statistical Evaluation | Practical | Execute rigorous cross-validation, receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves and sensitivity/specificity tests. |
| BIO744 | Critical Literature Synthesis & State-of-the-Art Analysis in Computational Biology | Theory | Synthesize academic publications from Nature Biotechnology, Bioinformatics, JAMIA and Lancet Digital Health. |
| BIO745 | Scalability Benchmarking, Regulatory Hardening & Security Audit | Practical | Subject the health tech platform to HIPAA/GDPR privacy stress tests, data encryption audits and scalability benchmarks. |
| BIO746 | Scientific Manuscript Preparation & Peer Review in Computational Biology | Theory | Author a publication-ready academic manuscript adhering to top-tier biomedical informatics conference guidelines. |
| BIO747 | Executive Strategic Direction & Digital Healthcare Advisory | Theory | Translate specialized biomedical computing research into actionable hospital executive technology roadmaps. |
| BIO748 | Comprehensive Health Tech Portfolio & Reproducible Pipeline Package | Practical | Package reproducible workflow scripts, Dockerized analysis environments and technical documentation in Computational Biology. |
| BIO749 | MSc Computational Biology Thesis Oral Defense & Public Academic Examination | Practical | Defend the novel scientific thesis and biomedical computing models before an academic examination committee. |
Recognized Bachelor Degree in computing, engineering, mathematics, quantitative discipline or relevant technical equivalence. English proficiency IELTS 6.5+ or equivalent.
Brookfield School of Computing is an independent private education institution in formation. Academic programmes, entry requirements, fees and awards are subject to institutional review and applicable Swiss legal regulations.