This site provides the material for the "Intro to Programming" course for students participating in the CompBio Hillman Academy 2026.
The course provides a basic hands-on lesson in programming using Python and examples from computational biology. No previous programming knowledge is assumed. This is NOT a comprehensive intro course in programming. We hope that this course gets students excited about combining programming and quantitative thinking in their biology research!
Instructors:
- Santiago Rivero (PhD student) sar634@pitt.edu
- Keisuke Ishihara (Assistant Professor) ishihara@pitt.edu
- Chris Morii-Sciolla (PhD student) chm271@pitt.edu
Meeting location:
- 3396 Fifth Ave, 10th Floor, Classroom 10105
Hands-on sessions:
For each session, import the notebook into Google Colab:
- Go to colab.research.google.com
- Select File > Open notebook > GitHub
- Paste in the repository URL:
https://github.com/Ishihara-SynthMorph/CompBioHA_IntroProgramming - Select the notebook for the session and click Open
- Save a copy to your own Google Drive (File > Save a copy in Drive) so your changes are preserved
Schedule:
| Date | Time | Topic | Coding concepts | Bio concepts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Wednesday, June 17 | 1:00-2:30 | Introduction | strings, loops, dictionaries, functions, Biopython | Central Dogma, HBB gene, point mutations |
| 2 | Thursday, June 18 | 9:00-10:30 | Machine Learning | pandas, matplotlib, seaborn, numpy, scikit-learn | RNAseq |
| 3 | Monday, June 22 | 9:30-11:00 | Image Analysis | loops, numpy arrays, segmentation, cellpose | Imaging, bacterial growth |
| 4 | Thursday, June 25 | 11:00-12:30 | Modeling and Simulations | classes, simulations | chemotaxis |