Teaching

Courses Created

  • MBB247: Molecular Biology: Fundamentals and Applications (Applied Biosciences: Biotechnology).This course was designed (together with Dr. Hugh Mason) to fill a gap between the first course of the MBB sequence (MBB245/246 or BIO187) and the more advanced courses of this major. The emphasis in this major is on molecular and cellular biology and gene technology and their applications in the growing areas of biotechnology and the molecular biosciences. MBB247 was designed to demonstrate how the accumulating data in molecular biology allow the scientists to apply it toward new and unresolved basic questions as well as toward “real-world” issues in such realms as medicine, agriculture, renewable resources and environmental protection. In designing MBB247 we present molecular biology as an evolving discipline – instead of presenting the students with facts packaged into textbooks, we present a series of tentative hypotheses and allow the students to follow the experimental path leading to their acceptance. A major emphasis in the course is therefore on how the molecular biologists formulate their questions, the tools they use to try to answer these questions and how conclusions (and new questions) can be drawn from the experimental results. Likewise, the weekly assignments are planned as exercises in scientific deductive thinking. Please refer to the syllabus and samples of representative presentations and homework assignments.
  • MBB248: Molecular Biology: Fundamentals and Applications Laboratory (Applied Biosciences: Biotechnology Laboratory). This is the companion lab course to MBB247 (co-requisite) and was designed to complement the lectures by providing opportunity for first hand experience with the some of the concepts and techniques introduced in the lectures of MBB247. MBB248 is further aimed at also to introducing the students to the culture of a molecular biology lab: how experiments are conceived and planned, how results are obtained, recorded, interpreted and presented, lab lingo and etiquette, team work, fun, excitement and (occasional) frustration… Following this rationale, the manual we wrote for the course is not the typical student lab cookbook. Instead, the procedures, while clearly stated, leaves much of the experimental planning to the students under the guidance and approval of the instructors. Please refer to the appended manual chapters.