Our Cancer Informatics stream offers world-class training in research at the interface of computational and clinical translational science.

The course embraces cutting-edge developments in the field: you will experience some of the most technologically advanced approaches currently being applied to the broad field of cancer research in a teaching programme that comprises both theoretical and practical elements.

What is informatics?

Informatics broadly covers the handling and analysis of data.

It is fast becoming one of the most desirable skills for postgraduate studies in biological fields. This is due to the widespread adoption of high-throughput molecular profiling technologies, in conjunction with the practice of uploading datasets to standard publicly-available online repositories.

We will provide you with the skills to leverage these large biological and clinical datasets to address novel hypotheses in order to gain new insights into molecular biology and to have a competitive advantage over other biological students.

Study programme

The course is made up of an initial 4/5-week taught component partly shared with the Cancer Biology stream. This covers the cellular and molecular basis of cancer biology, plus an introduction to the clinical and pathological aspects of carcinogenesis.

This information is covered in a series of lectures, which are inspired in part by the lecturer's own research.

You will gain an insight into the excellent project opportunities we have at Imperial, as well as those of our partner institutions (Crick Institute and Institute of Cancer Research).

Alongside lectures, there are a series of workshops covering key transferable skills such as the oral presentation of scientific data and grant writing.

To facilitate your learning, we will provide you with a textbook and you will present assigned chapters and additional research in small groups to the rest of the cohort. These book chapter presentations will be spread out over the taught component of the course.

You will then receive three weeks of intense informatics training through lectures and workshops with Imperial academics and industry experts.

Once you complete your informatics assignment, you will begin your research projects (lasting 15 weeks, and then 20 weeks).

Careers

This MRes is designed for aspiring researchers – 75% of the 2015-16 cohort are currently studying for a PhD.

Those in employment have entered into roles such as Research Scientist, Research Assistant, and Scientific Officer.