BIOL4000L: Advanced Bioinformatics and Machine Learning (Lab)
Welcome to the course portal for BIOL4000L: Advanced Bioinformatics and Machine Learning (Lab) for the Summer 2026 semester at the Asian University for Women (AUW).
This portal acts as your primary repository for all weekly computational lab experiments, coding environments, datasets, and programming tutorials. Our primary objective is to bridge the gap between biological theory and computational execution, introducing students to the practical application of computer science to the life sciences.
1. Course Logistics
- Instructor: Syed Mohammad Lokman
- Schedule: Thursdays, 11:00 am - 01:50 pm
- Location: UG-303
- Credits: 1
- Contact: syed.lokman@auw.edu.bd
2. Grading Breakdown
To succeed in this laboratory course, you will be evaluated based on your hands-on class engagement, analytical assignments, and a final research project:
| Assessment Component | Weight |
|---|---|
| Attendance | 15% |
| Class Performance | 15% |
| Assignment | 15% |
| Pre-Lab Quiz | 15% |
| Final Quiz | 20% |
| Project | 20% |
3. Weekly Schedule & Lab Materials
Note: Pre-lab readings and background conceptual guides must be completed before attending Thursday’s active lab sessions to ensure a productive environment.
Part 1: Programming Foundations
- Week 1: Introduction & Course Briefings
- Week 2: Eid-Break (No lab)
- Week 3: Programming with R: Install, Session, Environment
- Week 4: Basic Statistics for Bioinformatics in R
- Week 5: Exploratory Data Analysis & Visualization (Part 1)
- Week 6: Advanced EDA & Visualization with ggplot2 (Part 2)
Part 2: Machine Learning Applications
- Week 7: Mid-Term Week (No lab)
- Week 8: Introduction to Machine Learning in Bioinformatics
- Week 9: Feature Engineering & Data Pre-processing
- Week 10: ML Model Building and Evaluation
- Week 11: The Bias-Variance Trade-off