GEN 800 Seminar Courses
Spring 2009
GEN 800, Section 001/CMB
Microbial Effectors in Pathogenesis
Instructor: Brad Day
Time and Place: Wednesday, 1:30-2:30. CIPS Conference Room (Room 101)
Credit: 1 credit
What will be covered?
This seminar course will focus on the function of microbial effector proteins and their role in pathogenesis in plants, animals and insects. Emphasis will be placed on the development of a better understanding of the genetic and biochemical processes related to pathogenesis, and more importantly, how pathogens elude host defense responses. Current research papers from journals such as Cell, PNAS, Science, Nature, Molecular Microbiology, EMBO and MPMI will be selected by the students during the first meeting of the course.
Format:
This will be a seminar style course that will meet once a week in the form of a discussion section that will be comprised of 2 half hour presentations on that week’s papers. Each student will be required to give 1 or 2 presentations (depending on the number of students in the course) on a new research paper of their choosing. These presentations will consist of a brief synopsis and the introduction of background information about the biological system (i.e., mammalian toll-like receptors, vesicular trafficking in plant defense, etc.), the function/activity of the effector protein(s), and the interplay between the host and pathogen. The student is expected to engage the audience in discussion, and grading will be based on presentation style and participation in discussions.
Fall 2009
Hello everyone -
The weekly meeting time and place for GEN800/CMB800/HRT892 (Seminar/Next Generation Genetics) will be Thursdays, 10:10 - 11:10, in room 279 Plant and Soil Sciences. The last class will be Thursday, December 10. If you have a conflict at this time, please contact me as soon as possible.
Thanks!
S. van Nocker, vannocke@msu.edu
Genetics 800, Section 001
Next Generation Genetics
Also listed as HRT 892
Instructor: Dr. Steve van Nocker
Organizational Meeting: September 9, 10am
Place: TBA
This seminar course explores next-gen genomics technologies and novel genetic approaches developed to study human disease and their impacts on traditional genetic analyses outside of humans. What are the challenges of translating these to other organisms (eg population structure, self-incompatibility, polyploidy, interspecific hybridization)? What are the implications of emerging 'third-gen' DNA sequencing technologies for quantitative trait loci (QTL) analysis and development of genome-wide association (GWA) mapping? Finally, how might novel advances in plant genetics benefit human genetic studies? While plant breeding will be a major focus of the seminar course, the participants have the option of choosing articles that focus on non-plant systems. This course will be tied with the Plant Breeding, Genetics and Biotechnology (PBGB)/Genetics Symposium on Next-Gen Genetics scheduled for December 11, 2009.
For this fall semester, Genetics Program students may enroll in the two credit course MMG 803 (described below) as a substitute for one credit of GEN 800.
MMG 803 Microbial Products, 2 credits,
Instructor: Prof. Claire Vieille, ½ lecture and ½ student presentations.
Time: Tuesdays and Thursdays 10:10 to 11:00 AM
Place: 2245 BPS building.
This seminar series will explore the diversity of microbial products, their applications, and their advantages, as well as the strategies used for product discovery and for increased production.
Topics will include biofuels, enzymes, organic acids, pesticides, polysaccharides, a variety of nutrients, and chemotherapeutic agents.
Strategies covered will include genome-scale metabolic reconstructions, metabolic engineering, synthetic biology, high-throughput screening of metagenomes, directed evolution, new pathway discovery, etc.
Grades will be based on participation and presentations.