Program Overview

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Personalised Medicine - MSc

Overview

The right treatment, for the right person, at the right time.

Revalidation

The University regularly ‘refreshes’ courses to make sure they are as up-to-date as possible. In addition, it undertakes formal periodic review of courses in a process called 'revalidation’ to ensure that they continue to meet standards and are current and relevant. This course will be revalidated in the near future, and it is possible that there will be some changes to the course as described in this prospectus.

Summary

Personalised Medicine is at the cutting edge of a new era for medicine. Our ability to understand how genes, lifestyle, and environment can influence disease promises to revolutionise healthcare practices. Personalised Medicine relies on using biomarkers (e.g., genes or protein) to stratify (or split) patients into specific groups for diagnosing or treating diseases. The ideals of Personalised Medicine will be realised with the development of technologies and systems to predict disease, select the best treatment, and reduce side effects for individual patients. This approach to streamline healthcare provides more accurate clinical decision-making tools to identify ‘the right treatment, for the right person, at the right time.’

About this course

About

The course is designed as a Masters programme but it is credit-bearing and flexible, so you may also exit with a PgCert or PgDip at key points. Interested students are also welcome to undertake some of the individual modules as short courses.

Modules

• Introduction to Personalised Medicine & Pharmacogenomics This module seeks to develop students' knowledge of important and emerging areas within personalised medicine. It explores the role of pharmacogenetics, developing an understanding of the molecular aspects of stratified medicine, and creates a foundation for future learning in modules to follow. The module reviews the methods of biomarker discovery and translation and considers the issues surrounding personalised medicine research and its application into society.
• Mathematical and Computational Methods This module describes the mathematical frameworks required to analyse data and some of the statistical methods needed to evaluate hypotheses supported by data. It also introduces students to frameworks and concepts required by scientific computing and develops their programming skills such that they implement analyses of data.
• Clinical governance, regulatory processes and ethics This module is designed to provide an understanding of the importance of clinical and research ethics and governance. The module covers the regulatory processes involved in seeking research governance approval and provides students with an opportunity to complete an ethical review and to prepare a research ethics and governance application.
• Biomedical Informatics This module develops essential skills, knowledge, and understanding of biomedical informatics in relation to basic and applied research and practice. Providing an overview of biomedical informatics and its application.
• In Silico Genomic Proteomic & Metabolomic Analyses Methods This module provides an overview of in silico methods, theories, and applications to study genes, proteins or metabolites. It will also provide students with an understanding of Python.
• Clinical Trials Design and Patient Recruitment This module is designed to provide students with the ability to critically evaluate clinical trial design, and in-depth understanding of patient recruitment and the regulatory and ethical processes involved. The module will also provide students with the ability to critically appraise clinical trial analysis, reporting, and quality assurance.
• Clinical Decision Making and Diagnostic Theory This module details the regulatory and clinical guidance which is required to ensure the use of tests are evidence-based. Prognostic and clinical decision-making theory are explored in consideration of current and future clinical applications for stratified medicine.
• Healthcare Economics and Innovation in Personalised Medicine This module will provide an overview of the vital importance of economics in healthcare provision, before considering the potential large-scale economic benefits promised by personalised approaches to treatment. The effect that the emergence of personalised medicine is having on the economic and business models of big pharma, as well as regulatory agencies, will also be addressed, as well as the importance of entrepreneurship and small medium enterprises in driving forward healthcare innovation, especially within the personalised medicine space.
• Research Project This module will allow students to undertake an in-depth project in a topic related to Personalised Medicine.

Attendance

Fully Online.

Start dates

• October 2025
• January 2026

Teaching, Learning and Assessment

• Teaching and Learning All course content will be delivered online, the course will be taught using a combination of lectures, tutorials, and independent reading. Problem areas identified by students will be further explained during tutorials, and lecture material will be supplemented with possible sources of reading material to encourage independent learning.
• Assessment Assessment will be by 100% coursework. The pass mark for the module and individual pieces of coursework is 50%. Coursework will consist of online tests, discussions, and assignments.

Modules

Year one

• Biomedical Informatics This module develops essential skills, knowledge, and understanding of biomedical informatics in relation to basic and applied research and practice. Providing an overview of biomedical informatics and its application.
• Clinical trial design & patient recruitment This module is designed to provide students with the ability to critically evaluate clinical trial design, and in-depth understanding of patient recruitment and the regulatory and ethical processes involved. The module will also provide students with the ability to critically appraise clinical trial analysis, reporting, and quality assurance.

Year two

• Introduction to Personalised Medicine & Pharmacogenomics This module seeks to develop students' knowledge of important and emerging areas within personalised medicine. It explores the role of pharmacogenetics, developing an understanding of the molecular aspects of personalised medicine, and creates a foundation for future learning in modules to follow. The module reviews the methods of biomarker discovery and translation and considers the issues surrounding personalised medicine research and its application into society.
• Multi-omics Methods This module provides an overview of in silico methods, theories, and applications to study genes, proteins or metabolites. It will also provide students with an understanding of Python.
• Healthcare economics & innovation This module will provide an overview of the vital importance of economics in healthcare provision, before considering the potential large-scale economic benefits promised by personalised approaches to treatment. The effect that the emergence of personalised medicine is having on the economic and business models of big pharma, as well as regulatory agencies, will also be addressed, as well as the importance of entrepreneurship and small medium enterprises in driving forward healthcare innovation, especially within the personalised medicine space.
• Health Data Science This module establishes foundational concepts in data handling, processing, and analysis. Students will gain fundamental analytical skills and the understanding required to apply these skills to future data sets. This will include knowledge of how data is analysed and how these analyses can be implemented in code. The module will cover key data analysis techniques including data visualisation and supervised and unsupervised machine learning.

Year three

• Clinical translation & regulatory pathways This module details the regulatory and clinical guidance which is required to ensure the use of tests are evidence-based. Prognostic and clinical decision-making theory are explored in consideration of current and future clinical applications for personalised medicine.
• Research Ethics & Governance This module is designed to provide an understanding of the importance of research ethics and governance. The module covers the regulatory processes involved in seeking research governance approval and provides students with an opportunity to complete an ethical review and to prepare a research ethics and governance application.
• Research Project This module provides an opportunity to undertake an in-depth research project in the field of Personalised Medicine.

Standard entry conditions

• Entry Requirements Students will be considered for entry to this Masters course on an individual basis.
  • Applicants must have gained a second-class honours degree or better with significant bioscience (or biostatistics) such as nursing, biomedical sciences, biology, pharmacy from a university of the United Kingdom or the Republic of Ireland, or from a recognised national awarding body, or from an institution of another country which has been recognised as being of an equivalent standard; or an equivalent standard (normally 50%) in a Graduate Diploma, Graduate Certificate, Postgraduate Certificate or Postgraduate Diploma or an approved alternative qualification.
  • Provide evidence of competence in written and spoken English (GCSE grade C or equivalent).
• English Language Requirements The minimum requirement for this course is Academic IELTS 6.0 with no band score less than 5.5. Trinity ISE: Pass at level III also meets this requirement for Tier 4 visa purposes.

Careers & opportunities

• Career options This course provides an academically challenging science education for those who wish to follow a career within the area of Personalised Medicine. Graduates may also choose to proceed to higher postgraduate degree programmes; including PhD. You may also undertake this online programme for your continued professional development within your individual area of employment and this may be for career enhancement. Your future career will improve the quality of life of patients through better healthcare, and smarter technologies to treat and manage diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, neurological disorders, cancer or immune disease.

Professional Recognition

• Institute of Biomedical Science (IBMS) Accredited by the Institute of Biomedical Science (IBMS).

Fees and funding

• Tuition Fee Loans Available Students domiciled in Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland, and UK students can apply to Student Finance NI for a Tuition Fee loan of up to £6,500 (subject to eligibility).
• Fees The price of your overall programme will be determined by the number of credit points that you initiate in the relevant academic year.
  • Fees Credit Points| NI/ROI/GB Cost| International Cost*
    • 5 | £201.10| £494.70
    • 10 | £402.20| £989.40
    • 15 | £603.30| £1,484.10
    • 20 | £804.40| £1,978.80
    • 30 | £1,206.60| £2,968.20
    • 60 | £2,413.20| £5,936.40
    • 120 | £4,826.40| £11,872.80
    • 180 | £7,239.60| £17,809.20
    • 240| £9,652.80| £23,745.60
• Additional mandatory costs It is important to remember that costs associated with accommodation, travel (including car parking charges) and normal living will need to be covered in addition to tuition fees.

Terms and Conditions

1. We prepare our prospectus and online information about our courses with care and every effort is made to ensure that the information is accurate. The printed version of the prospectus is, however, published at least a year before the courses begin. Information included in the prospectus may, therefore, change. This includes, but is not limited to changes to the terms, content, delivery, location, method of assessments or lengths of the courses described. Not all circumstances are foreseeable, but changes will normally be made for one of the following reasons:

• to meet external, professional, or accredited body requirements;
• to provide for exceptional circumstances due to reasons beyond our reasonable control;
• to improve or enhance your experience, or to adopt changes recommended in student feedback, with the aim of improving the student experience and/or student outcomes; and/or
• to ensure appropriate academic standards are met, for example in response to external examiners’ feedback.

2. If there are insufficient enrolments to make a course viable, it may be necessary for the University to withdraw a course. If you have received an offer for a course that we subsequently have to close, we will contact you as soon as possible to discuss alternative courses. If you do not wish to study any alternative courses at the University, you may withdraw your application by informing us by email to .
3. Please note that the University’s website is the most up-to-date source of information regarding courses, campuses, and facilities, and we strongly recommend that you always visit the website before making any commitments.
4. We will include a durable PDF when we send you an offer letter which will highlight any changes made to our prospectus or online information about our courses. You should read this carefully and ensure you fully understand what you are agreeing to before accepting a place on one of our courses.
5. The University will always try to deliver the course as described in the durable PDF you receive with your offer letter.
6. At any point after an offer has been made, students will be notified of any course changes in writing (usually by email) as soon as reasonably practicable and we will take all reasonable steps to minimise their impact where possible. The University will, where possible and reasonably practicable, seek the express consent of the student in regard to any changes concerning material or pre-contract information.
7. The University website will be updated to reflect the changed course information as soon as reasonably practicable.
8. If, after due consideration, you decide that you no longer want to study your course or to study at the University because of the changes, you may withdraw your application or terminate your contract with the University. In order to do so, you should notify us in writing by emailing (and update UCAS if applicable). We will, on request, recommend alternative courses that you could study with us, or suggest a suitable course at an alternative higher education provider.
9. If you do not agree that the changes are fair, you can seek redress under the Student Complaints Procedures (opens in new window).
10. Providing the University has complied with the requirements of all applicable consumer protection laws, the University does not accept responsibility for the consequences of any modification, relocation or cancellation of any course, or part of a course, offered by the University. The University will give due and proper consideration to the effects thereof on individual students and take the steps necessary to minimise the impact of such effects on those affected.
11. The University is not liable for disruption to its provision of educational or other services caused by circumstances beyond its reasonable control providing it takes all reasonable steps to minimise the resultant disruption to such services.
12. Further information can be found in our terms and conditions (opens in new window).

Testimonials

• "This course was a fascinating introduction to the expanding field of personalised medicine. The blend of biomedical and computational modules provided me with an excellent foundation from which to develop my career in this area. There was a consistently good level of support from the academic staff throughout which makes a big difference when you're studying online. I would recommend this course to anyone interested in pursuing a career in bioinformatics or computational."
  • Gary Lonergan
• "I found the MSc in Stratified Medicine was perfect for me following the completion of my undergraduate degree in biomedical science. The flexibility of distance learning and the structure of the assessments allowed me to work to my fullest potential whilst also adjusting to post-university life."
  • Conor Mulholland

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• Learning and Teaching Our Faculty is dedicated to integrating sustainability across our curriculum, preparing students to address global environmental challenges.
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