In this course, you will follow in the footsteps of the bioinformaticians investigating the COVID-19 outbreak by investigating the origins of SARS-CoV-2. Whether you’re new to the world of computational biology, or you’re a bioinformatics expert seeking to learn about its applications in the COVID-19 pandemic, or somewhere in between, this course is for you! As you go through this journey, we will introduce and explain genomic concepts and give you many opportunities to practice your skills, and we will provide a series of problems with gradually increasing complexity. This third course will only discuss the multiple sequence alignment and maximum-likelihood phylogenetic inference of SARS-CoV-2 genomes, but future courses in this series will explore follow-up bioinformatics analyses used in the COVID-19 pandemic.
Offered By
Hacking COVID-19 — Course 3: Unraveling COVID-19's Origins
University of California San DiegoAbout this Course
Flexible deadlines
Reset deadlines in accordance to your schedule.
Shareable Certificate
Earn a Certificate upon completion
100% online
Start instantly and learn at your own schedule.
Beginner Level
Approx. 7 hours to complete
English
Subtitles: English
Skills you will gain
- Bioinformatics
- PCR primer design
- viral genome annotation
Flexible deadlines
Reset deadlines in accordance to your schedule.
Shareable Certificate
Earn a Certificate upon completion
100% online
Start instantly and learn at your own schedule.
Beginner Level
Approx. 7 hours to complete
English
Subtitles: English
Offered by

University of California San Diego
UC San Diego is an academic powerhouse and economic engine, recognized as one of the top 10 public universities by U.S. News and World Report. Innovation is central to who we are and what we do. Here, students learn that knowledge isn't just acquired in the classroom—life is their laboratory.
Syllabus - What you will learn from this course
2 hours to complete
Week 1
In Chapter 5, we will use sequence alignment to explore the "Artificial Origin Hypothesis" about the origin of SARS-CoV-2.
2 hours to complete
1 video (Total 13 min), 1 reading, 1 quiz
4 hours to complete
Week 2
4 hours to complete
1 video (Total 25 min)
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