Ramapo College Receives Approval To Offer Bioinformatics Major

(Mahwah) – Ramapo College of New Jersey has received state approval for its new interdisciplinary major, bioinformatics, which builds on well-established programs in biology and computer science. Ramapo will begin offering courses in the bioinformatics major in September 2002. The program leads to a bachelor of science degree.

Ramapo’s program is believed to be the first baccalaureate degree program in bioinformatics in New Jersey and one of the first in the United States offered by a primarily undergraduate four-year college. Most other existing programs are in research institutions that offer doctoral degrees.

Bioinformatics is a young interdisciplinary science that was born from the marriage of biology and computer science. It is applied to manage biological information and solve biological problems with the help of computer science-based technology. The management involves gathering, storing, analyzing and integrating data that can then be used for molecular modeling, gene discovery, assignment of functions to newly discovered genes, and study of relationships like structure and function of genes and proteins. The information obtained by the application of this powerful new technology can potentially be applied to prevent, diagnose and treat inherited and other diseases, design new drugs and vaccines, shorten the development cycle of new medicines and much more.

The field of bioinformatics is rapidly becoming an essential component of modern life sciences. Due to technological advances, there has been an explosion in the amount of data that is being continuously generated by human genome and other sequencing projects, and by research in various fields of life and health related sciences. At present, there is unprecedented demand for young researchers trained in bioinformatics to join the forefront of research areas in order to manage the data, develop methods to analyze it, solve scientific problems and make new discoveries.

New Jersey is a hub for the pharmaceutical industry and one of the largest centers of biotechnology. Ramapo College is especially suited for a bioinformatics program because it is located within a short distance from several companies that have high priority programs in the field.

For more information, contact Dr. Paramjeet Bagga, director of Ramapo’s bioinformatics program, (201) 684-7722.