Course Description

The goal of this course is to teach both the fundamentals of nuclear cell biology as well as the methodological and experimental approaches upon which they are based. Class meetings at the start of the week will generally be lectures describing the background and fundamental findings in a particular area of nuclear cell biology. The second session class meetings of the week will generally be a group discussion of one assigned paper in the same area. These seminal papers are used to understand both the important elements of the field as well as to provide concrete examples of the experimental approaches and logic used to establish these findings. Two students will be assigned to present the paper for each discussion based class and faculty and students will participate in the discussion. All students will be expected to have read the paper under consideration and be prepared for a lively discussion.

Enrollment is open to all biology graduate students and undergraduates by permission.

Evaluation

Students will be evaluated by two criteria. Participation in class discussions will constitute 50% of the grade. The remaining 50% of the evaluation will be based on a written proposal due at the end of the semester.