Instructor(s): Marc Libault
Number of Credit Hours: 3
Cross-listings: PLAS 429
Prerequisites: Faculty Permission
Description: Application of plant biotechnology to answer biological questions. Development of writing and thinking skills with a working knowledge of plant biology and biotechnology. Learning in a lab focused setting to solidify skills used in molecular biology, biochemistry, cell biology, and computational biology.
Learning Outcomes/Course Objectives
- Learn, understand, and apply molecular and biochemical technologies used by plant scientists to better characterize plant molecular mechanisms.
- Understand the benefits when working on biotechnologies to enhance our understanding of plant biology and, ultimately, crop productivity.
- Integrate the concept of the central dogma to your work on plant biology.
- Solidify the basic common skills used in biotechnology laboratories (lab calculations, sterile technique, bacteria production, setting up reactions, quantifying nucleic acids, handling quantitative data, etc.).
- Develop bioinformatics skills to analyze large-scale datasets and DNA/protein sequences.
- Design a molecular experiment including controls.
- Interpret the results of a molecular biology experiment or procedure.
- Troubleshoot problems. Raise constructive criticisms of your results.
- Plan and justify future experiments based on results.
- Being capable to mine relevant bibliography to better analyze/discuss your results.
- Improve writing and thinking skills with a working knowledge of biotechnology applications and methods.
- Reinforce the skills and procedures of keeping a lab notebook and formal lab reporting.