How have computers impacted biology?

This is a Biology Subject Spotlight with Richard Badge from University of Leicester. An interactive, cinematic course taster experience to allow students to gain insights into what it's like to study Biology.

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Join Richard Badge as he introduces Biological Sciences at the University of Leicester within the overarching concept that the biological sciences are changing. He looks closely at biology’s big data, considering how computers are integral to biology, identifies what a genome is and looks at the journey from genetics to epigenetics. Richard goes on to discuss how research projects are fundamental to the course, and how the technology underlying computers is essential for biological analysis, with a focus on DNA sequencing.

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About University of Leicester

The University of Leicester aims to educate, equip and encourage their students to forge a better future. As Citizens of Change, Leicester's research excellence is changing lives and having transformative impact across the globe. Ranked as a Top 30 University, their students and staff make up a powerhouse for ground-breaking research, including being in the top ten UK universities for their COVID-19 research; locating the remains of King Richard III; and the discovery of DNA fingerprinting. Located right in the heart of the East Midlands, Leicester prides itself in being one of the UK’s most multi-cultural cities, playing host to a number of cultural festivals such as a colorful Caribbean Carnival and the largest Diwali celebrations outside of India.

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Richard Badge

Dr Richard Badge grew up in the historic port city of Plymouth, United Kingdom. In 1989 he went up to study Pure and Applied Biology at Keble College Oxford University, and then went on to complete a PhD in the evolutionary population biology and molecular genetics of fruit fly transposable elements at the University of Nottingham. After a postdoctoral period in Nottingham he secured a Wellcome Trust International Travelling Fellowship to work on human transposable elements at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. He completed this Fellowship in the Department of Genetics University of Leicester in the group of Professor Sir Alec Jeffreys FRS. Now, as an Associate Professor in Bioinformatics in the Department of Genetics, he uses computational and molecular genomic methods to study human rodent and primate transposable elements.

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Subject Spotlights fuse education and entertainment to bring you the new way of researching your university options.

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