Biological Sciences

This course studies the diversity of microbial metabolisms. It looks at bacterial growth and replication, including organization and division of the chromosome, yield and responses to temperature, and nutrient availability. The course teaches photolithotrophy, photoorganotrophy, chemilithotrophy, and chemoorganotrophy; fermentation and anaerobic respiration; growth and extension metabolism of fungi; nitrogen transformations by microorganisms in free-living and mutualistic settings; microbiological standards in public health; clean water processing and waste-water treatment. Practical work covers prokaryote photosynthesis, bacterial fermentation, fungal digestion of wood and nitrogen transformations in sediments, and microbiological water quality. The course gives brief consideration to clean water processing and waste-water treatment.  

This course is intended to provide an introduction to basic concepts in virology and viral life cycles and to cover topics of various host responses induced by virus infection. Lectures will be focused on in-depth molecular mechanisms for propagation of pathogenic human and animal viruses and how viral infection can be controlled.

Prerequisite: Microbiology, Biochemistry, Molecular and Cellular Biology, Immunology (optional)

This course is designed to introduce bioinformatics to students of biology background. This course will cover an introduction, signature developments and breakthroughs, current and future emphasis of the field of bioinformatics. Working concept, underlying algorithms, and introduction to mainstream bioinformatics tools will also be covered. Computer programming (Linux and Perl) at a beginners level will also introduced. This course will be lecture-based with some hands-on experience. There will be homework projects assigned throughout the course.  

The most general function of our brain is to interact with our environment to obtain what we desire and to avoid what is disadvantageous. The brain plans and executes actions to accomplish this. Actions can be simple (e.g., picking up a pencil), effortful (e.g., endurance running), complex (e.g., dancing), or symbolic (e.g., stick up your thumb to get a ride). In all of these actions our brain is involved, but not to the same degree. Evolution has organized motor functions in a hierarchical system that delegates important motor and control functions to lower levels of the nervous system. This allows the brain to spend more time on other important functions, including the selection of goals and the planning of how to pursue them. Understanding of the neural mechanisms of decision making, action selection, action planning, and action execution has gained a lot from studying neural disorders (Parkinson's disease, orbitofrontal patients, obsessive compulsive disorder, etc.) which are considered in the course. Pre-requisites for this course include a course on biological foundations of behavior and a course on sensation and perception.

This course builds upon students' primary knowledge of the heart and circulation. Contemporary views of cardiac and vascular physiology are considered. The course develops students' understanding of cardiac and vascular function in relation to cellular mechanisms, with an emphasis on translating this to the human subject and the pathology of various cardiovascular diseases. Practical sessions give first-hand knowledge and experience of two techniques for assessing cardiovascular functions: blood pressure and organ bath pharmacology.