Course Format:  9:05A-9:55A, MWF, JHA106 plus four hours of lab per week.

Prerequisite:  L112.  Recommended - Chem C341 concurrently.

Course description:

Goals:

1. Construct a better understanding of relationships among genes,
proteins, and cells.
2. Appreciate the current status of research in the emerging fields of
genomics and proteomics.
3. Improve critical-thinking skills.

Big conceptual questions that we'll think about throughout the course:

1.  What information is encoded in the genome, and how is that
information decoded to maintain cellular organization?  An overriding
question for the course will be:  What is the relationship between the
genome and the cell?  For example, to what extent is the genome
analogous to a blueprint versus to a list of parts for cells?

2.  What types of information do we need in order to feel as though we
"understand" cells?  In other words, what information is required to
"specify" a cell?  A second overriding question for the course will
be:  As we come to understand more and more about how cells work, how
will we represent such information?  For example, what will future
"encyclopedias of life" look like?  (What types of information might
they include, and how might that information be organized and displayed?)

3.  Toward the goal of advancing medicine, what types of information
do we most want to know concerning genomes and proteomes?

Required text:  The Molecular Biology of the Cell, by Alberts et al.
(2002).

Weekly or daily assignments:  Short, thought-provoking writing and
diagramming assignments that will usually require consultation of a
textbook and/or the reading of recent review articles.

Exams/Papers:  No exams.  Some of the short writing/drawing
assignments may evolve into longer ones as you add onto them as we
progress through the course.  I don't know that I'd call these
assignments "papers", though, because "papers" sounds like something
more formal and scarier than what we'll be shooting for.