FIELD COURSE IN MARINE DRUG DISCOVERY

Graduate

This course offering will familiarize students in the areas of marine natural products, marine taxonomy, field based biological assays of relevance to drug discovery, marine microbiology, and biotechnology. Lectures will introduce students to the concepts of field research and their applications to drug discovery. Students will participate in field collections of marine invertebrates. The collected organisms will then be subjected to several biological and chemical assays. Students will present field reports identifying the collected species and any chemical or biological activities observed. The second half of the course will focus on supervised research projects. The project topics will be chosen by the students and instructors. In lieu of a textbook, students will be provided with a collection of several publications from the marine natural products literature. These articles will include reviews of marine natural products, reports of recent advances, and founding texts of the field. Course experience in invertebrate zoology at the undergraduate level is strongly recommended. PREREQUISITE: Admission to a graduate program in Science HOURS OF CREDIT: 3