Basic Biomedical Sciences Program
This program may be of interest to any student who is majoring in health sciences, medicine, biology, veterinary science, nursing, or any other health-related field and/or who is planning to apply to medical school after graduation. In today's globalized world, more and more students seek to include international experience in their studies. This can be achieved by working alongside faculty and students from UPF's prestigious Health and Life Sciences School.
Key Areas
- Anatomy and Embryology
- Biochemistry
- Cellular Biology
- Comparative Healthcare Systems
- Nutrition and Food SciencePhysiology
- Pathology
- Psychology
- Public Health
(!) All the Health-related direct enrollment courses will take place at Ciutadella Campus Mar which is about a ten-minute walk from the Ciutadella Campus (where HESP and Spanish language courses take place). Please, be aware of this when configurating your class schedules.
Program Requirements
- Applicants should have a minimum GPA of 3.0 at their school of origin.
- The program is suitable for both students with a strong command of Spanish and intermediate speakers.
- Students with a strong command of Spanish may participate in observation activities, as long as their language and other skills enable efficient communication with others in the experiential-learning setting.
- Students with any level of Spanish may participate in the experiential-learning activities in laboratories.
- Applicants should come from a university or study-abroad provider with a study-abroad agreement with UPF.
Academic Structure
The progam requires a full semester course load (normally 4-5 courses, equivalent to 24-30 ECTS credits). The course load is built from the following components:
1. A minimum of 2-3 courses from a selection of regular courses at the UPF School of Health and Life Sciences. The selected courses belong to various degree programs offered at UPF in the fields of biology, biotechnology, bioinformatics, health, and medical science. These are direct enrollment courses taught in English or Spanish and the list of selected elective courses can be found below.
2. An optional undergraduate research abroad project directed by UPF Faculty (6 ECTS).
Deadline for applications
Fall: May 30 | Winter and Spring: October 30
Academic offerings
1) Elective courses
We are currently updating the course offering. The course list below is provisional.
This course covers fundamental concepts and subjects in biochemistry, from the basic molecules of life to molecular cell biology and genetics. The course covers the structure and function of DNA, RNA, proteins and cellular components, metabolism and its regulations, and on chemical reactions in the cell.
Study of vector spaces and linear maps (systems of linear equations, rank and determinant of matrices, eigenvalues and eigenvectors) and other fields related to bioinformatics: numerical linear algebra, matrix decompositions, Markov matrices and systems of differential equations.
This course covers the basics of algorithms and data structures, with emphasis on fundamental algorithms and basic control structures and applications.
This course introduces students to the basic concepts of biophysics. Subjects include applied methodologies in this field and the structure and energetics of protein and nucleic acids, biomembranes, protein folding, molecular interactions and biological networks. The course also covers details of the biological energy repositories.
This course covers the basics of algorithms and data structures, with emphasis on fundamental algorithms and basic control structures and applications. We will focus mainly on the imperative paradigm and introduce object-oriented design. The main programming language will be Python, although we will also use C++ to discuss implementation aspects and efficiency.
This subject will introduce the different types of data available in the area of the health and life sciences, highlighting their specific characteristics, their heterogeneity and integration needs in order to solve scientific and clinical questions in the field. The main knowledge portals and databases to access and exploit this kind of data will be presented in hands-on sessions to provide students with the expertise to use these resources.
This course looks at the main optimization tools used in numerical mathematics, from the point of view of both continuous and discrete problems. This calls for a deep understanding of graphs and combinatorial problems.
51845-Algorithms for sequence analysis in Bioinformatics
Schedule
Schedule
Schedule
Principles of Bioinformatics
Schedule
subject goes through basic and applied fields of research relevant to the context of bioinformatics and biomedicine.
Introduction to Python programming through bioinformatics examples
Introduction to R programming through bioinformatics examples
UPF regular courses (all terms)
2) Undergraduate Research Abroad Projects (6 ECTS)
(Available during 2nd and 3rd terms)
Besides meeting the general Global Health Program admission requirements, students intersted in the Research Labs must be students of Biomedical related majors.The Research Projects can last for a period of 6 months (January-June/July) or 10 months (September/June).
Check the research groups which are available to consider your proposal.
3) Optional Electives from the Barcelona Program for Interdisciplinary Studies (including Spanish Language Courses)
(Available during 1st and 2nd terms)
Students may round out their course registration with the BaPIS courses and Spanish language courses, which are offered for all levels, from beginner to proficiency, including courses for native speakers.