Infectious Disease Health Informatics - Specialization
Infectious Disease Health Informatics
The amount of data generated about infectious diseases in human and animal health is exponential increasing. The bottle-neck is not necessarily whether data are accessible, but whether it is feasible to handle and analyse them also in a clinical and public ‘one-health’ health relevant time-frame. It has increasingly become clear that almost any understanding or decision-making in relation to human, animal and environmental health, requires staff with a thorough understanding and ability to handle large and complex data. The COVID-19 pandemic has clearly demonstrated this and it is expected that endemic infectious diseases and future pandemics and epidemics will have an increased focus in the years to come. DTU has several research groups with world-class competences in health- and bioinformatics, but no dedicated education educating candidates for the national and global marked.
A unique MSc specialization combining training in the genomics of microbial communities (incl. infectious microorganisms and antimicrobial resistance) with informatics to provide students with knowledge, methodologies and tools to:
- Explain the interaction between the human/animal microbiome and the occurrence of pathogens incl. co-infections, the treatment of infections and the symptoms/syndromes in the patients
- Analyse the occurrence, spread and dynamics of infectious diseases and antimicrobial resistance development at national, regional and global level by identifying risk factors and drivers, and sources and transmission pathways
- Analyse genomic data, including whole genome sequencing and metagenomic data
- Design and develop bioinformatic pipelines
- Design, implement and evaluate surveillance programmes and epidemiological studies
- Prioritise and propose targeted intervention strategies and support the decision-making process (risk assessment)
Programme specific courses (55 ECTS)
A total of 55 ETCS must be completed in Program specific courses. Program specific clourses consists of 10 ECTS mandatory courses that teaches essential skills relating to the specific field of this programme, and 5 ECTs from courses relate to innovation, entrepreneurship & management. The remaining 40 ECTs are selected from the course list below
Courses recommended for the specialization of Infectious disease health informatics:
| 23205 | Fighting infectious diseases | 5 | point | Autumn E4B (Fri 8-12) |
| 23261 | Epidemiological methods for surveillance of infectious diseases | 5 | point | Spring F2A (Mon 13-17) |
| 23262 | Infectious disease bioinformatics | 5 | point | Spring F3A (Tues 8-12) |
Other programme specific courses in the specialization of Infectious disease health informatics may include the following:
| 02450 | Introduction to Machine Learning and Data Mining | 5 | point | Spring F4A (Tues 13-17), Autumn E4A (Tues 13-17) |
| 22145 | Immunological Bioinformatics | 5 | point | Autumn E5A (Wed 8-12) |
| 23257 | Compositional data analysis with applications in genomics | 5 | point | Spring F2A (Mon 13-17) |
| 27230 | Prokaryotic cell biology | 5 | point | Autumn E1A (Mon 8-12) |
Specializations are merely recommended ways of choosing the courses in the curriculum. Applicants are not admitted to a specialization but to the programme and it is possible to choose among all the courses in the curriculum following the directions given. However, if a specialization has been fulfilled the title of the specialization may be added to the diploma.