Coursemaster:

Peter Burgers
Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biophysics
1911 South Building
362-3872
e-mail: burgers@biochem.wustl.edu
course website: https://bmbcourses.wustl.edu

Lectures: Holden Auditorium
Time: MWF 10:30-11:30 AM
Discussions: Location TBA, 2-3 Fridays per month, 10:30 AM -12 PM

This course is designed for graduate students and upper level undergraduate students who have a basic knowledge in molecular biology and nucleic acid biochemistry from appropriate undergraduate classes. Formal lectures in all areas of nucleic acids structure and function are complemented with discussions of current literature. The purpose of these discussion sessions is to gain a critical understanding of approaches and methodologies used to address basic problems in molecular biology.

Syllabus

It is assumed that students are already familiar with the material in a textbook such as Lewin's Genes IX (Prentice Hall), Lodish's Molecular Cell Biology(6th Ed., Freeman and Co.), Alberts' Molecular Biology of the Cell (5th Ed., Garland Publ.) or Berg’s Biochemistry (6th Ed., Freeman and Co.), or a similar undergraduate textbook. There is no formal textbook for the course. The listed books are recommended as sources of background information for the lectures, or as specialized references that may clarify experimental procedures mentioned in assigned journal articles. One of these textbooks should suffice for any given subject.

The course is team-taught by a staff of 6 Washington University researchers. Course grading is primarily based on exams, each of which will have an in-class and out-of-class component. (The final is not cumulative.) Each lecturer will assign 1-2 papers per lecture. The material in these papers may appear on the exams. Each lecturer will also hand out a problem set pertaining to the lecture material, which is intended to be a study guide; it will be ungraded. Some of the questions on the problem sets are intended to be similar to exam questions.

The lecture section of the course is team taught by a staff of 6 Washington University faculty. Each lecturer will assign 1-2 papers per lecture. The material in these papers may appear on the exams. Lecturers will also hand out a problem set pertaining to the lecture material, which is intended to be a study guide; it will be ungraded. Some of the questions on the problem sets are intended to be similar to exam questions.

In addition to the lectures, there will be nine discussion section meetings. Depending on class size, discussion groups will have 8-10 students. The purpose of these meetings is to discuss in detail specially assigned papers. Students will be assigned to a discussion leader for the duration of the course and will be required to write a short critical review of each of the assigned discussion papers. The reviews will be turned in for evaluation and grading.

How to write a good critique.

Course grading is primarily based on exams. Each exam will have an in-class and take-home component. Exams are not cumulative. Each exam is worth 100 pts for a total of 300 pts. Each discussion critique is 10 pts for a total of 80 pts (the lowest scoring critique will not be counted); discussion participation and leadership will count for a total of 40pts.