Survey of the physical, chemical and biological properties of freshwater ecosystems, both riverine and lentic, natural and polluted.

Basic science writing and presentation skills for PhD students in Biology. Designed for second year graduate students preparing for qualifying exams. In the first half of the course, students will produce weekly writing assignments and critique writing submitted by others. In the second half, students will learn techniques for effective research presentations in both seminar style environments and chalk-talk settings.

The importance of microbiology in complex issues, such as the impact of the microbiome in human health or as alternative energy sources, is being appreciated more and more each day. This upper level laboratory course provides students with a robust technical skill set while also giving them an opportunity to participate in an authentic research project that may lead to novel discoveries. Students will generate research questions, formulate hypotheses, design experiments, analyze data, and present their research findings to the class. In each project, students will use the cutting edge approach of metagenomics to evaluate the microbial diversity of their environment via Next Generation Sequencing. Students will also examine the function of microbial species within their communities. Potential projects include the isolation of novel antibiotic producers and the antibiotic they produce, designing and optimizing microbial fuel cells that can be used to generate electricity, or isolating antibiotic resistant bacteria and attempting novel approaches to inhibit or prevent their growth.

Microbiology plays a central role in diverse areas of human life such as infectious disease, ecology, and biotechnology. This course will cover aspects of modern microbiology with an emphasis on prokaryotic organisms. The topics will include basic aspects of microbial diversity, genetics, virology, and pathogenesis as well as examples of applied microbiology.

The logic and methodology of genetic analysis in plants and animals. This lecture course will focus on the use of mutations to study gene function and higher order biological processes, methods for reporting and manipulating gene expression, and analysis of the genetic basis of natural variation.

This course will survey the discipline of molecular genetics. Two broad areas will be considered 1) Molecular Biology: DNA replication, transcription, translation, regulation of gene expression in both prokaryotic and eukaryotic systems, and genomics and 2) Genetics: basic Mendelian & molecular genetics.

This course will survey the discipline of molecular genetics. Two broad areas will be considered 1) Molecular Biology: DNA replication, transcription, translation, regulation of gene expression in both prokaryotic and eukaryotic systems, and genomics and 2) Genetics: basic Mendelian & molecular genetics.

This course will survey the discipline of molecular genetics. Two broad areas will be considered 1) Molecular Biology: DNA replication, transcription, translation, regulation of gene expression in both prokaryotic and eukaryotic systems, and genomics and 2) Genetics: basic Mendelian & molecular genetics.

Life depends on the propagation of genetic material from one generation to the next through cycles of genome replication and cell division. The genome is copied by the parent, and one exact copy is inherited by each daughter cell. We will treat chromosomes as discrete entities, rather than collections of genes, that are replicated and divided with high fidelity to ensure that the genome remains stable over many generations. By reading selected primary literature covering several decades, we will build an understanding of the cell cycle by focusing on chromosomes and the associated molecular machinery. We will explore mechanisms that underlie replication and division, particularly control mechanisms that maintain genome integrity and are critical to prevent disease. The goal of the course is to develop a picture of the cell cycle by examining some of the key experiments and insights that have led to our current understanding.

This course investigates epigenetic phenomena: heritable alternate states of gene activity that do not result from an alteration in nucleotide composition (mutations). Epigenetic mechanisms regulate genome accessibility and cell differentiation. They play a key role in normal development and in oncogenesis. For example both mammalian X-chromosome inactivation and nuclear transfer (cloning) are subject to epigenetic regulation. Amongst the epigenetic mechanisms we will discuss in this course are chromatin organization, histone modification, DNA methylation and non-coding RNAs. The course is geared toward advanced undergraduate and beginning graduate students and is a combination of lectures, student presentations and research presentations by guest speakers. Students will work with the current scientific literature.