Modern biosciences increasingly incorporate mathematical analysis of problems and computer tools and strategies (see the Bioinformatics page). The Mathematics, Computers and Biosciences course is being developed to underscore these crucial connections. The goal is to motivate bioscience students to integrate mathematics and computers more fully into their course electives, selection of research internships, and career planning.

The course Mathematics, Computers and Biosciences will use modules designed to highlight the utility of mathematical and computational techniques in the organization and representation of biological data and in the analysis of bioscience problems. About fifteen instructional modules have been drafted to date. The modules are highly varied; for example, one is a sampling problem using genetic testing and false positive rates to focus on strategies for organizing data in appropriate ways to analyze risk. Another assigns the task of manually constructing a cladogram from a table of characteristics, laying the groundwork for a mathematical approach. A third module starts with the combinatorial puzzle of predicting the nature of the genetic code and leads into an introduction to the use of sequence databases.

In all of the course activities, the focus is on building competence to approach quantitative problems logically, recognize problem-solving strategies, and confidently apply analytical skills to new situations.