Biotechnology transforms basic biological research into pharmaceutical therapies. This course will examine some explanations for American biotechnology vitality by studying case histories in which fundamental, biological observations were subsequently developed, successfully and unsuccessfully, for therapeutic applications. Along the way, we will also seek to understand the interactions among academic research institutions, biotechnology companies, large pharmaceutical companies, the Food and Drug Administration, financial institutions, venture groups, and the Patent and Trademark Office. Classes will be highly interactive. Students will present case histories in a critical fashion. Ultimately, students will conduct mock negotiations focused on university technology transfers, clinical trial design, financing, and intellectual property.

This is an immersion course that involves students in hands-on research methodes in tropical marine ecosystems in Hawaii, including coral reefs, mangroves, and planktonic seawater communities. Students will learn how to develop and conduct research experiments via field and lab-based activities, and will gain familiarity with a diversity of marine organisms including corals, algae, invertebrates, and fish. Topics covered will included ecological and evolutionary principles as applied to coral reef ecosystem structure, function, and biodiversity, and examine processes that influence growth and survival of marine organisms, including natural and anthropogenic stressors (e.g. climate change). Additional topics will include environmental and management challenges facing coral reefs and marine resources globally, and the cultural significance of marine ecosystems to the native peoples of Hawaii.

Principles of Drug Action covers the concepts of pharmacological sciences as they relate to biochemistry, cell biology, and drug therapy. The intent of the course is to provide a solid grounding in targets of drug action, dose-response relationships, pharmacodynamics, and pharmacokinetics. The grounding is achieved by a discussion of these concepts explicitly and, through selected examples, implicitly. The first part of the course covers each of the concepts. Emphasis is placed on the integration with principles of cell biology and biochemistry. The second part of the course covers selected therapeutic applications. The applications chosen fall within four areas: cardiovascular, brain and behavior, antipyretic and anti-inflammatory, and antimicrobial. They are used to recapitulate important concepts and provide insight into the interplay between pharmacology and human physiology. The applications and the areas they represent are by no means comprehensive, but students will be able to pursue additional interests through papers.

Introductory probability theory. Principles of statistical methods. Problems of estimation and hypothesis testing in biology and related areas.

This course is designed for students who are interested in understanding how physiological functions are achieved. Taking advantage of the recent explosion in genetic data and high-resolution protein structure analysis across organisms, the course focuses on the evolution of physiological functions at the genetic, structural, circuit and organismal levels. Examples include the co-evolution of toxins and toxin resistance between hunter and prey, the evolution of substance transport across cell membranes, intracellular signaling cascades, intercellular communication, distributed and centralized nervous systems, neural circuits controlling physiological functions such as feeding, locomotion and visual information processing. Students are expected to learn 1) basic physiological processes, their origin and adaptation, 2) modern genetic, structural and physiological techniques, 3) to critically evaluate research findings, 4) to present scientific papers, and 5) to write a research report.

This course focuses on the current state of our knowledge about the neurobiological basis of learning and memory. A combination of lectures and student seminars will explore the molecular and cellular basis of learning in invertebrates and vertebrates from a behavioral and neural perspective.

Advanced version of BIOL 140: Humans and the Environment. Additional readings and course work as directed.

The goal of this course is to develop a deeper understanding of techniques and concepts used in Computational Biology. The course will strive to focus on a small set of approaches to gain both theoretical and practical understanding of the methods. We will aim to cover practical issues such as programming and the use of programs, as well as theoretical issues such as algorithm design, statistical data analysis, theory of algorithms and statistics. This course WILL NOT provide a broad survey of the field nor teach specific tools but focus on a deep understanding of a small set of topics. We will discuss string algorithms, hidden markov models, dimension reduction, and machine learning (or phylogeny estimation) for biomedical problems.

This course is designed for advanced undergraduate and graduate students who are interested in molecular physiology of sensory signal transduction. The major topics to cover will be signal transduction mechanisms used by membrane ion channels and receptors that detect the sensory stimuli (light, sound, temperature and taste, for example) and transmit the signals to the nervous system. Modern molecular/structural techniques (patch clamp, protein crystallization, molecular genetics, expression cloning and protein purification) will be introduced along with each topic. References will be primary research articles. Students will critically evaluate research discoveries by reading and presenting one to two original research papers. Each student is required to write a 10-page research proposal and to critique proposals written by fellow students.

This course will focus on fundamental topics related to the ecological and evolutionary processes driving the transmission of pathogenic microbes among hosts including life-history strategies; evolution of pathogenic traits; the impacts of temporal, spatial and host-trait heterogeneity; and factors causing the emergence of an infectious pathogen. Examples will be drawn from human, wildlife, and plant pathogens to illustrate these ecological and evolutionary topics. Students will learn to develop and apply current ecological and evolutionary theory to infectious microbe research and gain practical experience accessing, interpreting and synthesizing the peer-reviewed scientific literature through a combination of popular and scientific readings, discussion, and lecture.