Teaching
Courses taught:
BIOL 450 - Modern Genetics (Spring semesters)
Credits: (4)
An introduction to the principles and mechanisms of inheritance at both the organismic and molecular levels. Provides an integrated approach to transmission genetics and the fundamentals of molecular biology. Topics covered include Mendelian inheritance, DNA and chromosome structure, gene expression, mutation, recombinant DNA, quantitative inheritance, population, and evolutionary genetics.
CIS 734 - Introduction to Genomics and Bioinformatics (Spring even years)
Credits: (4)
Every other year the director and the associate director of the bioinformatics group co-teach Introduction to Genomics and Bioinformatics. For biology students, the course introduces fundmental bioinformatics algorithms and database structures. For computer science students, the course introduces fundmental concepts in molecular biology and evolution and how these concepts can be used to optimize data mining and sequence assembly. Weekly labs provide an opportunity to apply these concepts using training datasets.
Computer science and biological science students pair for group projects. In these independent projects a large dataset, typically generated in a student's lab, is analyzed and conclusions are presented. This independent work provides real-world experience for both the computer science and biological science students.
Guest lectures:
Special lectures have been given to classes in the Entomology department (ENTOM 799 - Problems in Entomology) and the Division of Biology (BIOL - 510 Developmental Biology; and BIOL - 620 Evolution).
Seminars:
Molecular Genetics Journal Club:
Weekly Meeting: Tuesdays from 12-1pm in Ackert 324 A
Each week a member of the journal club leads the discussion on a paper from the current literature. The paper is chosen and distributed by the discussion leader the week before the meeting. The semester schedule is set at the first meeting of the semester.
