[bioundgrd] Biology Advanced Undergraduate Seminars-Spring 2010

[Nick Polizzi]

TO:     Biology Students
FROM:   	H. Robert Horvitz, Professor of Biology

         I am writing to inform you of the exciting Advanced  
Undergraduate Seminar courses being offered by the Department of  
Biology for the Spring 2010 term.  A complete list of the courses,  
instructors, and brief course descriptions are enclosed.  The topics  
are highly varied and encompass areas of biochemistry, molecular  
biology, microbiology, cancer biology, neurobiology, developmental  
biology, stem cells, human disease, biotechnology and therapeutics. A  
student can take any number of these courses.  The courses, which  
generally involve four to eight students, are for 6 units, graded pass/ 
fail, and meet two hours each week.  The focus is on reading and  
discussing the primary research literature.  Most courses have two  
short written assignments.  Some include field trips to MIT research  
laboratories or to commercial sites using technologies discussed in  
the courses.  The level of each course will be tailored to the  
students who enroll.  Because of the small size of these courses, we  
expect students not to drop these courses once they have begun.

         These courses offer a number of special features:  small  
class size, a high degree of personal contact with the instructor, a  
focus on the primary research literature, and an opportunity to  
discuss current problems in biology interactively.  I believe these  
courses greatly enrich an undergraduate’s experience.  There are  
limited alternative opportunities available to undergraduates to  
interact closely with instructors who are experienced full-time  
researchers; to learn to read, understand, and analyze primary  
research papers; and to engage in the type of stimulating discussions  
and debates that characterize how science is really done.  Most  
advanced MIT undergraduates (generally juniors and seniors) have been  
sufficiently exposed to the basics of biology to be able to read the  
primary literature and appreciate both methodologies and cutting-edge  
advances.  These courses have two goals:  first, to expose students to  
the kind of thinking that is central to contemporary biological  
research; and second, to impart specific knowledge in particular areas  
of biology.  These courses are designed to be intellectually  
stimulating and also to provide excellent preparation for a variety of  
future careers that require an understanding both of what modern  
biology is and of how it is done.  Students who have taken Advanced  
Undergraduate Seminars in the past (different specific courses, same  
general design) have been enormously enthusiastic about their  
experiences.

          I am writing to you before Registration Day to encourage you  
to consider enrolling in one of these seminar courses.  Please feel  
free to contact any of the instructors to learn more about their  
courses. To learn more about the Advanced Undergraduate Seminars to be  
offered during the Spring 2010 semester, please check our website (http://mit.edu/biology/www/undergrad/adv-ugsem.html 
) and/or contact the instructors.



Advanced Undergraduate Seminars
Spring 2010

7.340 Regenerative Medicine: from Bench to Bedside
Instructor:	Petra Simic (psimic at mit.edu, 3-0809; laboratory of Lenny  
Guarente)
			Wednesdays, 1 pm – 3 pm.  (Class time is flexible.)  Room 68-151.

Regenerative medicine involves the repair and regeneration of tissues  
for therapeutic purposes, such as replacing bone marrow in leukemia,  
cartilage in osteoarthritis or cells of the heart after a heart  
attack. Tissue regeneration has been of interest throughout history.  
There is even a Greek myth that describes liver regeneration:  
Prometheus was chained to a mountain, and his liver was eaten daily by  
an eagle, regenerated and then eaten again the next day. Today  
advances in basic and clinical research make tissue regeneration  
feasible. Tissue is normally generated during fetal development by the  
differentiation of embryonic stem cells or during postnatal life by a  
similar differentiation of adult stem cells. Regenerative medicine  
tries to mimic these processes. In this course, we will explore basic  
mechanisms of how cells differentiate into specific tissues in  
response to a variety of biologic signaling molecules. We will discuss  
the use of such factors for in vitro tissue production. For example,  
bone morphogenetic proteins can be used in vitro to drive the  
differentiation of adult stem cells towards bone and heart. We will  
also study the cellular mechanisms involved in the cloning of animals  
and how Scottish researchers produced the sheep Dolly using the  
nucleus of a mammary gland cell from an adult sheep. We will read  
papers describing organ production, such as the in vitro formation of  
beating heart cells. We will also consider the molecular bases of  
cellular and functional changes of different organs that occur in  
disease and treatments that cause tissue remodeling to correct these  
changes. We will discuss how studies of the developmental, cellular  
and molecular biology of regeneration have led to the discovery of new  
drugs. We will visit the Massachusetts General Hospital to see the  
patients with regenerated tissues and the Genzyme drug production  
facility to see how drugs are produced for human use.


7.346  RNAi: A Revolution in Biology and Therapeutics
Instructors:	Allan Gurtan (gurtan at mit.edu, 3-6458; laboratory of  
Phillip Sharp)
                         Michael Goldberg (michaelg at mit.edu, 3-6457;  
laboratory of Phillip Sharp)
			Thursdays, 3 pm – 5 pm. (Class time is flexible.) Room 68-151.

The goal of medicine is to cure disease.  Despite centuries of effort,  
however, modern medicine struggles against the same obstacles today as  
medicine did in its early days: identifying the cause of a disease and  
treating it specifically without inducing side effects.  While  
significant advances in medicinal chemistry have been made over many  
decades, traditional small molecule therapeutics remain unpredictable,  
often because of a lack of specificity.  Similarly, the recent advent  
of recombinant DNA technology, though ushering in an era of protein- 
based therapeutics, has achieved only limited success, owing in part  
to difficulties posed by the large sizes of these macromolecules.   
What, then, is the next therapeutic frontier?  The answer may lie in  
RNA interference (RNAi), a fundamental biological process discovered  
only a decade ago and recognized soon afterwards with the 2006 Nobel  
Prize in Physiology or Medicine.  RNAi is mediated by small  
interfering RNAs (siRNAs), which direct the efficient degradation of  
specific messenger RNAs, thereby inhibiting the synthesis of specific  
proteins.  Since its discovery, RNAi has revolutionized basic science  
research by allowing analyses of the genes and proteins required for  
cellular processes.  RNAi can be used to test candidate disease target  
genes in cellular and animal models of human disease.  Additionally,  
the race is now on to develop siRNAs as a class of therapeutic  
agents.  In principle, any gene known to play an essential role in a  
disease pathway can be targeted by RNAi.  In this course, we will  
discuss the studies that have led to the current excitement concerning  
the therapeutic potential of this new field.  Specifically, we will  
consider various aspects of RNAi: its discovery, how it functions in  
normal biological processes, its utility as an experimental tool, its  
potential for therapeutic use, and how RNAi therapeutics are being  
pursued by the biotechnology industry.


7.347  Antibiotics, Toxins, and Protein Engineering: Science at the  
Interface of Biology, Chemistry, Bioengineering, and Medicine
Instructor:	Caroline Koehrer (koehrer at mit.edu, 3-1870; laboratory of  
Uttam L. RajBhandary)
			Thursdays, 1 – 3 pm. (Class time is flexible.)  Room 68-151.

The lethal poison Ricin, best known as a weapon of bioterrorism;  
Diphtheria toxin, the causative agent of a highly contagious bacterial  
disease; and the widely used antibiotic tetracycline – all three have  
one thing in common: they specifically target the cell’s translational  
apparatus and disrupt protein synthesis. In this course, we will  
explore the mechanisms of action of toxins and antibiotics, their  
roles in everyday medicine and the emergence and spread of drug  
resistance. We will also discuss the identification of new drug  
targets and how we can manipulate the protein synthesis machinery to  
provide powerful tools for protein engineering and potential new  
treatments for patients with devastating diseases, such as cystic  
fibrosis and muscular dystrophy.


7.348  Non-malignant Tumor Cells – A Broader Approach to Cancer Research
Instructors:	Julia Rastelli (rastelli at wi.mit.edu, 8-5173; laboratory  
of Bob Weinberg)
			Asaf Spiegel (spiegel at wi.mit.edu, 8-5173; laboratory of Bob Weinberg)
			Wednesdays, 3-5 pm. (Class time is flexible.) Room 68-151.

Despite advances in cancer research, the treatment of most cancers  
remains insufficient, rendering the disease a leading cause of death  
in the western world. Tumors are complex tissues that consist not only  
of malignant cells but also of a variety of non-malignant stromal  
cells, such as blood vessel cells, immune cells, and fibroblasts. What  
is the role of stromal cells in the tumor, and what is the normal  
physiological role of such cells in the human body? Where do stromal  
cells come from, and what triggers their recruitment into tumors? How  
do stromal cells affect the fundamental steps of tumor progression,  
such as angiogenesis (blood vessel formation) and metastasis  
(spreading of tumor cells to distant tissues)? In this course we will  
discuss and critically evaluate scientific papers that attempt to  
answer these questions in one of the most exciting and rapidly  
evolving fields in cancer research – the tumor (micro)environment. We  
will also discuss how non-malignant tumor cells might be used as new  
targets for cancer therapy as a complement to conventional therapy  
based on targeting only the malignant cells.


7.349  From Molecules to Behavior:  Synaptic Neurophysiology
Instructor:	Alex Chubykin (chubykin at mit.edu; 46-3301; laboratory of  
Mark Bear)
			Wednesdays, 11 am – 1 pm. (Class time is flexible.)  Room 68-151.

The brain is the most sophisticated computational machine known.  
Vastly different from conventional man-made computers, the brain is  
massively parallel, self-organizing, and plastic - it can change its  
own components and rewire itself to a new configuration necessary for  
a new task. Synapses, the connections between nerve cells, are the  
fundamental computational units of the brain. Like transistors in a  
computer, synapses perform complex computations and connect the  
brain’s non-linear processing elements (neurons) into a functional  
circuit. Understanding the role of synapses in neuronal computation is  
essential to understanding how the brain works. In this course  
students will be introduced to cutting-edge research in the field of  
synaptic neurophysiology. The course will cover such topics as synapse  
formation, synaptic function, synaptic plasticity, the roles of  
synapses in higher cognitive processes and how synaptic dysfunction  
can lead to disease. This research requires a wide range of  
techniques, including molecular genetics, biochemistry,  
electrophysiology and optical imaging, and examines mechanisms  
involved in the development, physiology, and pathophysiology of the  
nervous system. We will read both classical research papers addressing  
the basics of synaptic physiology and the latest research papers  
addressing the role of synapses in the function of neuronal circuits.  
Students will learn to critically analyze scientific papers, to apply  
the scientific method in neuroscience research, to evaluate and  
interpret data and to design experiments.

  
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