BIOL 319
Integrative Bioinformatics, Genomics, and Proteomics Lab Fall 2014
Division III Quantitative/Formal Reasoning
Cross-listed MATH 319 / PHYS 319 / CHEM 319 / CSCI 319
This is not the current course catalog

Class Details

What can computational biology teach us about cancer? In this capstone experience for the Genomics, Proteomics, and Bioinformatics program, computational analysis and wet-lab investigations will inform each other, as students majoring in biology, chemistry, computer science, mathematics/statistics, and physics contribute their own expertise to explore how ever-growing gene and protein data-sets can provide key insights into human disease. In this course, we will take advantage of one well-studied system, the highly conserved Ras-related family of proteins, which play a central role in numerous fundamental processes within the cell. The course will integrate bioinformatics and molecular biology, using database searching, alignments and pattern matching, phylogenetics, and recombinant DNA techniques to reconstruct the evolution of gene families by focusing on the gene duplication events and gene rearrangements that have occurred over the course of eukaryotic speciation. By utilizing high through-put approaches to investigate genes involved in the MAPK signal transduction pathway in human colon cancer cell lines, students will uncover regulatory mechanisms that are aberrantly altered by siRNA knockdown of putative regulatory components. This functional genomic strategy will be coupled with independent projects using phosphorylation-state specific antisera to test our hypotheses. Proteomic analysis will introduce the students to de novo structural prediction and threading algorithms, as well as data-mining approaches and Bayesian modeling of protein network dynamics in single cells. Flow cytometry and mass spectrometry will be used to study networks of interacting proteins in colon tumor cells.
The Class: Format: two afternoons of lab, with one hour of lecture, per week
Limit: 12
Expected: 12
Class#: 1310
Grading: yes pass/fail option, yes fifth course option
Requirements/Evaluation: lab participation, several short homework assignments, one lab report, a programming project, and a grant proposal
Prerequisites: BIOL 202; or; students who have not taken BIOL 202 but have taken BIOL 101/AP Biology and CSCI 315 or PHYS 315 or CSCI 106, may enroll with permission of instructor; No prior computer programming experience is required
Enrollment Preferences: seniors, then juniors/sophomores
Unit Notes: does not satisfy the distribution requirement in the Biology major
Distributions: Division III Quantitative/Formal Reasoning
Notes: This course is cross-listed and the prefixes carry the following divisional credit:
MATH 319 Division III PHYS 319 Division III BIOL 319 Division III CHEM 319 Division III CSCI 319 Division III
Attributes: BGNP Core Courses
BIMO Interdepartmental Electives

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