Spring 2001: BIOL 425: Molecular Biology and Genetics Laboratory

overview – instructors – course information – downloads – updates

overview location 400 and 402 Goddard Laboratories time T Th 1:30-4:30 syllabus BIOL 425 Syllabus + Schedule blackboard BIOL 425 Blackboard site BIOL 425 is a laboratory course in which you will use modern molecular biological techniques. This year we will take on two projects. First we will clone and extensively characterize a bacterial operon that encodes a luciferase enzyme. Second, we will use state-of-the-art PCR and DNA sequencing to identify unknown bacteria. During the semester you will become experienced in isolating genomic and plasmid DNAs, constructing and screening genomic libraries, restriction mapping and subcloning genomic DNA, PCR amplification, DNA sequencing, and a bit of bioinformatics. At the end of the semester we will run a multi-session minisymposium on microarray technologies where student groups will discuss recent applications and advances in the field.

	professors Greg Guild 204 Kaplan Wing email: gguild@sas.upenn.edu +1 215 898.3433 Eby Bassiri (Lab Coordinator) 407 Goddard Laboratories email: ebassiri@sas.upenn.edu +1 215 898.7147 teaching assistants Chris Dalland email: cdalland@sas.upenn.edu Tolga Emre email: emre@sas.upenn.edu

course information textbook The following lab manual is available at the University of Pennsylvania bookstore: Unraveling DNA: Molecular Biology for the Laboratory, Winfrey, et al. (1997) Our Molecular Biology and Genetics lecture course (BIOL 221) is a prerequisite for this course. If you have not taken this course or if you are currently enrolled in BIOL 221 get in touch with the instructor during the first week of lab. If you are unfamiliar with the fundamentals that underpin the experiments we will conduct in BIOL 425 you should review this material which can be found in most any modern Genetics textbook. As an example, you can consult the text listed below which is used for BIOL 221. It is available at the University of Pennsylvania bookstore: Principles of Genetics, 2nd Edition, Snustad, D.P., and Simmons, M.J. (2000), John Wiley & Sons, Inc grading and exams The course will be graded on the following components: Lab notebook, 20%, collected twice during semester Written discussion questions, 20%, weekly Written lab exam, 20%, on Thursday 4/26/01 1:30 PM (last lab period) Paper on unknown bacteria, 10%, due 4/24/01 Lab quizzes, 10%, unannounced Symposium presentation, 10%, one per semester Class participation, 10% lecture schedule Please refer to the BIOL 425 PDF schedule for more information on this course. academic integrity All relevant University policies regarding Academic Integrity must be followed. This includes no cheating, no plagiarism and reporting any knowledge thereof. Please consult the Student Handbook or the appropriate web-page: http://www.college.upenn.edu/responsibilities/integrity.html

	downloads  schedules BIOL 425 Syllabus + Schedule  assignments + handouts Assignment 1 - DNA repair (January 23, 2001) Microarray presentation schedule (March 20,2001) PCR and bioinformatic identification of microorganisms (April 2,2001)  exams BIOL 425, Spring 2000, Final Exam

course updates 04/04/2001 PCR + BLAST references Links to PCR principles and animation: http://allserv.rug.ac.be/~avierstr/principles/pcr.html http://allserv.rug.ac.be/~avierstr/principles/pcrani.html Links to BLAST: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/blast/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/blast/blast.cgi http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/BLAST/blast_overview.html http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Education/BLASTinfo/tut1.html

Courses
Department of Biology
School of Arts and Sciences
University of Pennsylvania

last updated September 28, 2001