As a person coming from a computational background, I have been through formal training in computer science branches e.g. software, algorithm, statistics, etc. These skills are very useful in computational biology and put you on a big advantage by giving you a diverse set of tools to approach different biological questions. However, I think it is also a necessity to develop a core knowledge of the underlying biology in order to fully appreciate the science you do; to ask relevant questions and pick the relevant computational technique to solve it.

Here, I gathered a list of topics that I believe are the core of the biology which any biologist, including computational biologists for our matter, could benefit from learning about them. Of course, Learning is a life-long process and no one can imagine mastering all of these topics totally or even near that, but I try to learn about them more whenever I find some times. There are very nice textbooks or online courses that you could take for free, so the limit is your imagination and time 🙂

Biology and Science:

Chemistry (General, Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry)

Physics (General, Biophysics)

Cell and Molecular Biology

Human Genetic

Immunology

Anatomy and Physiology

Microbiology

Pathologic Basis of Disease (Introductory)

Principles of Pharmacology (Introductory)

Histology