This degree will be run by the Departments of Computing Science and Engineering. Subjects studied will range from the design and implementation of large complex software systems, through micro-controllers and their applications, to the theory behind the optimal control of electromechanical systems.
Computers are also essential for medical and biomedical research, such as developing new drugs.
The Human Genome Project would have been impossible without computers. Effectively developing and using information technology in medicine requires people with a background in both fields, who are comfortable talking about biomolecules, cells, clinical medicine on the one hand, and databases, mathematics and programming languages on the other hand. Currently there are relatively few people who have such knowledge, and they are much in demand in academia, industry, and the health service. The goal of the BSc Medical Computing Science, the only degree of its kind in the UK, is to educate students in both medicine and computing science, so that they can contribute to the research, development, and use of medical computing science. Brain surgery is very dangerous, and the surgeon needs to know the exact position of the lesion and its supplying blood vessels.