New MSc at Imperial to help biologists tackle big issues

New MSc at Imperial to help biologists tackle big issues. MSc in Quantitative Biology will focus on recent research - News Wednesday 21 July 2010 - By Becci Thompson and Lucy Goodchild Biologists of the future will be better placed to tackle big problems including climate change, species extinction and the resistance of germs to antibiotics with the help of a new MSc in Quantitative Biology , which starts at Imperial College London this October. Using recent Nature papers as case studies, the new MSc is unique in its cutting edge approach to quantitative biology, equipping the next generation of scientists with necessary tools in mathematics, statistics and video imaging to study topical questions in modern biology. The course will be taught jointly by the Department of Mathematics and the Department of Life Sciences and will be based in Berkshire, at Imperial's Silwood Park campus. Dr Ivana Gudelj , one of the course directors from the Department of Mathematics at Imperial, said: "Biologists sometimes shy away from maths, but it is not scary. It can be extremely useful! Modern biological problems have generated lots of data and maths is a tool that can help us make sense of these data." In this video Dr Daniel Reuman , another one of the course directors from the Department of Life Sciences, and Dr Ivana Gudelj explain what quantitative biology is and why Imperial's new MSc is important for the next generation of scientists. (The video imaging of cell division (at 2:46) is courtesy of Rafael Pena-Miller at Imperial College London and Martin Ackermann at ETH.)