Abstract:

Research in omics disciplines in Spain and its application in biomedicine, biotechnology, food safety and agricultural production, has experienced a huge boost in Spain in the last five years. The large volume of data generated and required for the analyzes in these disciplines, surpass the techniques that had traditionally been used in Statistics. However, the public university sector has not been offering at the same pace the high-level training required. Therefore, currently in Spain, and as far as the authors have been able to find out, there is not enough official offer of university training in computation in omics disciplines, normally grouped as Bioinformatics. Apart from the degrees in biotechnology, some masters are offered, but not degrees in Bioinformatics.

The authors propose that the design and implementation of a Degree in Bioinformatics, at the Universitat Jaume I in Castellón (Spain) (UJI), can be viable and allow a differentiated training offer. This happened several years ago when the UJI offered the Degree in Design and Development of Video Games, since it has been very popular since then. After a general preliminary study, bearing in mind that the Degree in Medicine has already been consolidated in the UJI, that the Doctoral Program of Biomedical Sciences and Health has been launched, and with the stabilization of research groups whose research line is related to the omics and bioinformatics, there is sufficient basis to be able to offer a degree in Bionformática with an orientation applied in biomedicine and clinical medicine, such as Degree in Medical Bioinformatics.

This degree should incorporate and integrate knowledge and skills of disciplines such as Genetics, Statistics, Software Engineering and Databases and other computer subdisciplines, but adding basic medicine subjects so that graduates can work properly in a multidisciplinary team in health and biomedical fields. This paper aims to describe the context, the bases and the structure of the proposed degree.

Keywords:

Bioinformatics, degree curriculum, viability study.