Lecture: Tues. & Thurs., 8:00 - 9:15, Atwater A001 Discussion section Wednesday, 3-5, TLS 301 Daniel GageOffice: BSP 406 Phone: Office hours by appointment Textbooks The lac Operon: Benno Muller-Hill (must buy) Genetics and Molecular Biology: Robert Schlief (pdf provided) Textbooks at NIH Entrez (see resources at class web site) Molecular Biology/Genetics of Prokaryotes MCB 3612 and MCB 5621

Course Grades Three exams including the final exam + three small projects Problems from problems sets will make up a large portion of each test--therefore DO THE PROBLEMS! Because problems will show up on the exams, I will not be providing answers, but you are welcome to work together, use your text, internet, etc, for help with the problems The assignment of a letter grade will be based on your total score relative to your student peer group (grad or undergrad). Both graduate and undergraduate students will have extra problems on exams, or due outside of class.

Typical diagrams for learning molecular biology trp operon of E. coli gal operon of E. coli

Building a knowledge base Fact or concept Connection

Overview of the course Goal: Learn how to use genetics to understand the functioning of bacteria We will be using work done on the Lac system of E. coli as a way to learn genetics and molecular biology. Many genetic and molecular biology techniques were invented to work on the E. coli lac system and gave rise to much of modern molecular biology. The lac operon, and related genetic systems, are being used to investigate current issues in genetics We will be looking at old and new work on lac to understand prokaryotic genetics and molecular biology

Examples of topics in 2 nd part of course