Biological Sciences

This course provides individual research training for students in the Junior Year Engineering Program through the experience of belonging to a specific laboratory at Tohoku University. Students are assigned to a laboratory with the consent of the faculty member in charge. They participate in various group activities, including seminars, for the purposes of training in research methods and developing teamwork skills. The specific topic studied depends on the instructor in charge of the laboratory to which each student is assigned. The methods of assessment vary with the student's project and laboratory instructor. Students submit an abstract concerning the results of their individual research each semester and present the results near the end of this program.

This course explores the structure-function relationship of biological macromolecules like proteins, DNA, RNA, and viruses.  The course explains biological mechanisms learned from other courses such as biochemistry, cell biology, and molecular biology in atomic detail. 

Structural biology is essential for understanding biology at the molecular level. Furthermore, it is a critical technique for rational drug design. This course also covers recent advances in structural biology. 

The course covers the following topics:

• Basics of Protein Structure
• The Folding, Folds and Functions of Proteins
• Basics of Membrane Proteins
• Basics of Nucleic Acid Structure
• Basics of Lipids and Membrane Structure
• Basics of Carbohydrates
• Enzymes
• Genome Structure, DNA Replication and Recombination
• Transcription
• Protein Synthesis – Translation
• Protein Folding and Degradation
• Transmembrane Transport
• Cell Motility and Transport, Signal Transduction
• Structural Aspects of Cell-Cell interactions
• The Immune System, Virus Structure and Function
• Bioinformatics tools in Structural Biology 

Recommended Prerequisite: Biochemistry I 

The course covers human psychological development from childhood to old age and methods used in research in development psychology. It describes theoretical perspectives on personality and related fields of application. The course consists of four modules, this is the first module: Child Psychology. This module studies the psychological and biological development during childhood and how this development is affected by genetic factors and different living conditions. Some of the topics addressed are self-regulation, emotional attachment, social understanding, and friendship. Furthermore, the module covers the research methods used to generate knowledge of child development.

The course provides a fundamental knowledge of genetics. It covers how traits are passed from one generation to the next, the role of genes in biological functions, methods for mapping genes to chromosomes and predicting risk of transmission of monogenic pathologies, and methods to characterize and/or create an animal model for a genetic disease.

Knowledge of foodborne microorganisms is essential for supplying safe and wholesome foods with a long shelf life. This course offers an introduction to the basics of food microbiology and discusses both the negative aspects of micro-organisms, such as spoilage and disease and the positive effects of fermentative processes. Characteristics of food that influence growth and inactivation of micro-organisms (e.g. water activity, pH, preservatives, heating, modified atmosphere packaging) are reviewed. The course provides a detailed introduction to the main bacterial foodborne pathogens (e.g. Campylobacter, Salmonella, E. coli O157, Listeria monocytogenes) and methods for microbial examination, but also deals with foodborne viruses, parasites, and fungi. Moreover, good manufacturing practices, personal hygiene, and the principles of cleaning and disinfection are explained. In a three-week lab class, spoilage organisms and pathogens are isolated from food products and environments using traditional and molecular methods. In the tutorial classes, molecular identification methods are explored, and the effect of several bactericidal treatments is investigated.

This course reviews how genetic factors that influence human traits are identified. The traits focused on are human diseases, but the techniques can be applied to a wide field of subjects. The background knowledge necessary to understand and apply the different methods, the molecular laboratory techniques (theoretically), and the approaches to finding causal variants for human heritable diseases are taught. Students practice using the vast number of databases containing human genetic information. The subjects can roughly be divided into two main groups: Organization and evolution of genomes and genes and identification of mutations that influence human diseases. Requirements for admission include a knowledge of the structure and organization of DNA; the processes of meiosis and mitosis, including recombination; transcription and translation; gene expression; laboratory techniques such as PCR, restriction enzymes, and DNA-hybridization. 

This course examines target organ toxicology (lung, liver, CNS), environmental toxicology (such as asbestos and pesticides) and the diverse world of plant and animal toxins. The fundamental mechanisms for toxic reactions in the human body will be explored. As a final consequence of exposure to many toxicants, the biology and causes of cancer are discussed. As part of the course, students will be introduced to methods for the collection and analysis of data from human and animal populations, including clinical trials, forensic problems and epidemiological data. 

This course gives students an understanding of the intricate relationship between human health and the immune system. It provides students with tools to critically review and understand the current knowledge (sometimes contradictory) behind what we know about the origin of the disease, its clinical phenotype, and its treatment. In order to do so, an expert in the field is invited to lecture each week on a specific disease/condition, ranging from autoimmune disorders and viral infections to cancer and aging. Students also gain an understanding of how the immune system’s power can be harnessed for new therapeutic avenues that are currently explored.

This course offers a study of bioinformatics methodologies. Topics include: introduction to programming; processing and analysis of biological sequence data; modeling and simulation of molecular dynamics; genomics and metagenomics; transcriptomics.

This course introduces the molecular biology and the biological hallmarks of cancer. It describes different cancer types, the oncogenes or tumor suppressors that are known to cause cancer and the signaling pathways that are perturbed in cancer. Furthermore, it discusses the different hallmarks of cancer, such as cell proliferation and death, invasion and metastasis, and metabolism. The course also covers current therapeutic approaches to different cancers and current research trends in cancer biology.