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Genomics has become an essential component across a range of fields. In medicine, cancer clinicians use genomics to profile patients’ tumours to identify targets for personalised treatment; immunologists use genomic technologies to characterise the variability of a patient's immune repertoire; and microbiologists use genomics to identify bacterial and viral pathogens. With increasing awareness, rapidly advancing technologies and falling costs, the application of genomic technologies continues to expand.

This module aims to provide students with an up-to-date and broad knowledge of the principles of genomics, genomic technologies, methods of genomic analysis and the application of genomics in medicine and life sciences. We will begin with an overall introduction to the genome and describe in some detail the technologies that are used, their strengths and weaknesses and how to apply them. Genomic technologies generate huge volumes of data. We will look at how these data are handled, what resources exist to help understand the data, and how, in practice, computational resources are used to extract the information needed to make clinical and research decisions. We will examine several medically important branches of genomics including epigenomics (how the genome is regulated), transcriptomics (how active genes are measured and what they can tell us) and metagenomics (genomics of populations of organisms). We will also look at the use of genomics in personalised medicine and examine some of the ethical issues that arise from the use of these technologies.