Program Overview

Master of Science in Bioinformatics (MSc)

The Master of Science in Bioinformatics is an interdisciplinary program that combines the application of computer technology to the management and analysis of biological data. The result is that computers are being used to organize data generated from experiments into databases, develop new algorithms and software, and use this software for the interpretation and analysis of the data into meaningful biological information. For the past ten years, our M.Sc. program has been training students to organize, visualize, analyze and interpret biological data. Students have access to world-renowned bioinformaticians at the University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University, and the BC Cancer Agency, and have exposure to the latest technologies to develop their skills.

Strategic Program Objectives:

• To build on British Columbia's reputation and excellence in bioinformatics.
• To integrate bioinformatics into basic biology to further current research excellence in other life science sectors of the province.
• To foster collaborations locally, nationally, and internationally.

Program Details

• Faculty: Faculty of Science
• Academic Unit: Bioinformatics Program
• Specialization: Bioinformatics
• Mode of Delivery: In person at UBC Vancouver
• Program Components: Coursework + Thesis required
• Tuition (First Year):
  • Domestic: $5,626.02
  • International: $9,883.98
• Median Funding: 50% of students receive $33,453 or more funding per year in the first 2 years, before tuition and fees

Admission Information & Requirements

Program Instructions

Students must secure a supervisor before they can be admitted into the program. As well, they must meet the minimum admission requirements set out by Graduate and Post-doctoral Studies at UBC.

Minimum Academic Requirements

The Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies establishes the minimum admission requirements common to all applicants, usually a minimum overall average in the B+ range (76% at UBC). The graduate program that you are applying to may have additional requirements.

English Language Test

Applicants from a university outside Canada in which English is not the primary language of instruction must provide results of an English language proficiency examination as part of their application. Tests must have been taken within the last 24 months at the time of submission of your application.

Prior Degree Requirements

Applicants must have a Life-Sciences degree, with significant experience in a quantitative science OR a Computer Science/Math/Engineering/Physics degree with significant experience in Life Sciences.

Document Requirements

• CV
• Official transcripts
• Three letters of reference
• Official English exam scores (if required)

Deadlines

• Program Name: Master of Science in Bioinformatics (MSc)
• Intake: May 2026
  • Canadian Applicant Deadline: 30 November 2025
  • International Applicant Deadline: 30 November 2025
• Intake: September 2026
  • Canadian Applicant Deadline: 15 January 2026
  • International Applicant Deadline: 15 January 2026

Research Information

Program Components

Students who secure an NSERC-CREATE scholarship will undertake a 3-4 month internship that may be local, within Canada, or at an international University or Institution.

Facilities

Bioinformatics faculty are spread throughout the UBC campus, as well as off-campus at the BC Cancer Research Centre or hospital research labs and Institutions.

Tuition & Financial Support

Tuition

• Application Fee:
  • Canadian Citizen / Permanent Resident / Refugee / Diplomat: $118.50
  • International: $168.25
• Tuition per year:
  • Canadian Citizen / Permanent Resident / Refugee / Diplomat: $5,626.02
  • International: $9,883.98
• International Tuition Award (ITA) per year (if eligible): $3,200.00

Financial Support

Applicants to UBC have access to a variety of funding options, including merit-based and need-based opportunities.

Program Funding Packages

All students accepted by a faculty member and enrolled in the program will be paid a minimum stipend of $24,300/year.

Career Options

As biological data sets increase exponentially in both size and complexity, bioinformatics tools have central importance in fields and industries ranging from environmental management, forestry, aquaculture, and bio-fuels to personalized medicine, drug development, preventative medicine, and gene therapy. Individuals who can analyze and interpret large data sets or "big data" are highly sought after by both public and private sector employers.

Enrolment, Duration & Other Stats

• Applications: 123 (2023), 135 (2022), 151 (2021), 114 (2020), 105 (2019)
• Offers: 17 (2023), 17 (2022), 18 (2021), 28 (2020), 21 (2019)
• New Enrolment: 15 (2023), 12 (2022), 15 (2021), 22 (2020), 19 (2019)
• Total Enrolment: 37 (2023), 49 (2022), 46 (2021), 45 (2020), 36 (2019)
• Graduation Rate: 86% based on 28 students admitted between 2015-2018
• Average Time to Completion: 2.65 years

Research Supervisors

• Instructions regarding thesis supervisor contact for this program: All applicants need firm commitment from a supervisor prior to applying.
• List of Faculty Members with Full Supervisory Privileges:
  • Accili, Eric
  • Adams, Keith
  • Aparicio, Samuel
  • Bashashati, Ali
  • Birol, Inanc
  • Bohlmann, Joerg
  • Bouchard-Cote, Alexandre
  • Brooks-Wilson, Angela
  • Carlsten, Christopher
  • Cembrowski, Mark Steven
  • Cherkasov, Artem
  • Cohen Freue, Gabriela
  • Collins, Colin
  • Condon, Anne
  • Coombs, Daniel
  • Daley, Denise
  • Dao Duc, Khanh
  • de Boer, Carl
  • Dennis, Jessica
  • Ding, Jiarui
  • Finlay, B Brett
  • Frangou, Sophia
  • Friedman, Jan Marshall
  • Garbi, Rafeef
  • Greenblatt, Ethan

Sample Thesis Submissions

• AI-driven 3D assessment for Peyronie’s disease
• The enhancement of drug discovery workflow with artificial intelligence components
• Predicting alternative conformations with AlphaFold2: with a focus on proteins exhibiting autoinhibitory behavior
• Identification of pharmacogenetic variants influencing the likelihood of developing cancer treatment-induced mucositis using pathway analyses
• Tracking clonal structure from leukemia diagnosis to relapse using mitochondrial variants
• An ontology-based approach for modelling viral variant functional effects
• Transcriptomic analysis to uncover the role of endogenous retroviruses in multiple sclerosis
• How polygenic background and regulatory complexity shape mutational robustness
• Resolving cell cycling and non-cycling dynamics in scRNA-seq
• Widespread alteration of protein autoinhibition in human cancers
• Investigations into the contributions of co-expression to computational gene function prediction
• Development of computational solutions to process and interpret mass spectrometry-based metabolomics data
• Whole genome sequencing of Campylobacter in a chicken abattoir to characterize the population dynamics
• Rational design of Notch2 and ER-AF2 inhibitors as prospective bladder cancer and breast cancer therapies
• Evaluating the performance of between-sample heterogeneity identification algorithms in large-scale flow cytometry data analysis
• LiquidBayes: a bayesian network for monitoring cancer progression using liquid biopsies
• Genetic risk for anorexia nervosa and associations with general dimensions of psychopathology in childhood
• Characterization of allele-specific 5-methylcytosine in cancer and quantification of 8-oxoguanine using nanopore sequencing
• Structure-aware deep learning model for peptide toxicity prediction
• Long-read based native RNA sequencing of human transcriptomes reveals complexity of mRNA modifications and crosstalk between RNA regulatory features
• Learning cellular hierarchies through structured topic modeling
• Structural variant calling and resolution from long reads sequencing data
• Application of supervised learning models to compare epigenetic predictors of gene expression across healthy breast cell types
• Improving white spruce genome annotation and generation of a chromosome-scale epigenetic map
• A machine learning and algorithmic tool to advance peyronie’s disease assessment
• Development and application of machine learning-based tools for the discovery of small molecule inhibitors of SARS-CoV-2 papain-like protease (PLpro)
• Simulation-based inference of micelle geometry from 2D cryo-EM images of membrane proteins
• The genome of black spruce: genome annotation & analyses

Related Programs

• Same Specialization: Doctor of Philosophy in Bioinformatics (PhD)

Further Information

• Specialization: Bioinformatics
• Faculty: Faculty of Science
• Academic Unit: Bioinformatics Program
• Program Identifier: VGMMSC-CS
• Classification: Natural sciences » Computer and information sciences » Bioinformatics