Tricks of the Trade in Molecular Genetic Research

3.0 credits · Graduate

Genetic methods including CRISPR-based genome editing provide elegant tools with which to dissect the pathways that mediate cell function, the development of multicellular organisms, and other processes. This course examines these approaches, illustrated with examples showing how they have been used to address important biological problems, including time, place, and nature of gene/pathway action. We focus primarily (but not exclusively) on multicellular organisms, including fruit flies, nematodes, and mice. Lectures, class discussion, and problem sets are based on important papers in the current and classical scientific literature.