Course Descriptions

• Advanced Topics in DNA Repair
  Course Detail

  GS04 1241 (1 credits)
  Fall

  This 5-week course, which will start from November 5 to December 14, 2018, is designed for students to explore the hypotheses, logic, principles, and approaches that best exemplify the field of DNA repair.  Each week, there will be a one-hour open format discussion of a DNA repair topic led by a faculty member and a two-hour journal club discussion of recent papers that highlight the weekly topic moderated by at least two faculty members. The discussion will occur on Mondays from 9 to 10 a.m. and the journal club will occur on Fridays from 9 to 11 a.m. The course will take place at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Smithville Campus and be video conferenced to the main campus (Houston), with the exception of one week when the campus and video conference sites will be reversed. There will be no specified presenters or pre-prepared slides for the journal club. The course will cover: Nucleotide Excision Repair and Human Disease, DNA Repair in the Context of Chromatin, Meiosis and Homologous Recombination, Antibody Generation as a Model for DNA Repair, and Targeting DNA Repair for Cancer Therapy. Instructors will be faculty in the Epigenetics and Molecular Carcinogenesis Department. Auditing this course is permitted with course director's consent. 

• Developmental Biology
  Course Detail

  GS04 1073 (3 credits)
  Fall

  Behringer, Richard; Eisenhoffer, George. Three semester hours. Fall, annually. Grading System: Letter Grade. Prerequisite: Consent of Instructor.

  Developmental Biology is one of the fundamental modern biological disciplines. This course provides an in-depth examination of the basic cellular, molecular, and genetic mechanisms by which a fertilized egg transforms into an organism with fully differentiated and functioning tissues and organs. Topics covered will include cell-to-cell communication, embryo patterning, tissue morphogenesis, cell differentiation, progenitor cells, advantages and disadvantages of classical and genetic model organisms for analyzing development, postembryonic development and regeneration, and the profound implications of developmental biology for medicine. The course is divided into hands-on lab modules, utilizing primary model organisms to examine the basic principles of developmental biology and will discuss current debates and recent findings that have yet to be simplified for textbook presentation.

• G&E Oral Scientific Presentations
  Course Detail

  GS04 1821 (1 credits)
  Spring

  The class is designed for second year students who have chosen their thesis lab and are preparing for their candidacy exam.  The students will use their thesis project as a template to develop a 20-minute scientific presentation.  All aspects of the presentation will be covered including title and introduction slides, organizing your data into a story, model slides and conclusions and answering questions.  In addition to the 20-minute presentation students will also give two 90-second elevator talks one to a scientific group and one to a non-scientists group.  Students will also present a 10 minute chalk talk based on the research plan that is based on the data from their 20-minute talk. This course is designed to prepare the student for the oral defense portion of their candidacy exam and to prepare the student to present their work in both short and long format platform presentations. Auditing this course is permitted with course directors' consent. 

• G&E Scientific Writing
  Course Detail

  GS04 1811 (1 credits)
  Fall

  This course is designed for second year students who have already chosen their thesis lab. Students will be taught how to write scientific papers. The goal of the class will be for each student to write a review of the literature of their field of research for submission and publication.

  >> This course fulfills the GSBS Scientific Writing requirement <<

• Genetic Epidemiology of Chronic Disease
  Course Detail

  GS11 1092 (2 credits)
  Spring

  This course will expose students to the evidence and logic involved in inferring the contribution of genetic mechanisms to those diseases of public health importance.  Emphasis will be on developing a framework for assessing the impact of genes on common disease, but will not include detailed methodological developments or statistical techniques.  The format will be a weekly two-hour session in which a single disease will be examined.  In this way students will be exposed to a broad spectrum of diseases and see both the uniqueness and the similarities of the problems inherent to each. 

• Introduction to Bioinformatics
  Course Detail

  GS01 1143 (3 credits)
  Spring

  This course is intended to be an introduction to concepts and methods in bioinformatics with a focus on analyzing data merging from high throughput experimental pipelines such as next-gen sequencing. Students will be exposed to algorithms and software tools involved in various aspects of data processing and biological interpretation. Though some prior programming experience is highly recommended, it is not a requirement.

• Population Genetics
  Course Detail

  GS11 1123 (3 credits)
  Spring

  This course will discuss the principles of population genetics and their applications to human populations as well as statistical methods for analyzing genetic samples of individuals from one or more populations. Topics to be covered include random mating, linkage, inbreeding, natural selection, maintenance of polymorphic and deleterious genes, molecular evolution, quantitative genetics and a modern population genetics approach known as coalescent theory, the cornerstone for analyzing DNA sequence samples from populations. Topics may vary from year to year with the background of the students. Studies at the molecular level will be emphasized.  This course is cross-listed at School of Public Health (PH1984L) and the class venue is at UTHealth The University of Texas Health Science Center School of Public Health. 

• Pragmatic Bioinformatics for Bench Scientists
  Course Detail

  GS04 1792 (2 credits)
  Summer Session

  Bioinformatics is becoming essential in the genomic era. Witnessing both the power and the complexity of bioinformatics, bench scientists, despite providing most of the biological insights, often feel left out as simply data generators, and frustrated when collaborating with data analyzers. This course, taught by bench scientists who have published on specific bioinformatics topics, aims to empower bench scientists with valid statistical and computational methods to be able to explore data and communicate with computational scientists. It is pragmatic because it covers as-needed theoretical background and teaches usable, instead of efficient, programming in the format of a dry-lab protocol that generates publication-quality figures. It consists of 9 modules covering basic coding, principles, RNA, DNA, protein, images, network analysis, and freeware. Each module consists of two 2-hour sessions on Mondays and Wednesdays. Grades are based on homework.

• Principles in Genetics and Epigenetics
  Course Detail

  GS04 1253 (3 credits)
  Spring

  The Principles in Genetics and Epigenetics (PIGE) class is designed for students who have a major interest in the aspects of experimental and human genetics and epigenetics as they relate to human disease, including Mendelian disorders, complex diseases and cancer. Students are required to have completed the core course (or equivalent). This class will provide in-depth instruction in four areas: 1) Experimental genetics, 2) Human genetics, 3) Epigenetics, 4) Applied bioinformatics.  The class will be held two times a week for one and a half hours.  Students are expected to actively participate in the course by initiating discussions, asking questions, and providing constructive comments, as well as completing weekly homework assignments based on the material covered in the lectures of the preceding week.  Students will be evaluated by attendance, participation, bioinformatics workshop participation and completion of assigned exercises, and overall performance on the assigned homework.  As a foundational course, this course is designed to introduce students to the basic principles in genetics and epigenetics and prepare the student to generate novel hypothesis-driven projects as part of their own research in the areas of genetics and epigenetics inside and outside of G&E laboratories.  The course emphasizes active learning through a combination of didactic lectures, selected application lectures and a bioinformatics workshop. Auditing this course is permitted with Course Directors' approval. 

• Seminar in Genetics and Population Biology
  Course Detail

  GS11 1711 (1 credits)
  Spring and Fall

  Presentation and analysis of individual topics or research. The class is a series of seminars on a variety of topics in genetics presented by faculty from the School of Public Health and other institutions in the Texas Medical Center, as well as a number of visiting speakers.

• Stem Cells in Biomedicine
  Course Detail

  GS04 1081 (1 credits)
  Fall

  A stem cell is a cell from the embryo, fetus, or in any adult organs, that has the ability to reproduce itself for long periods of time, and at a given signal, give rise to many specialized cell types in the body. Apart from embryonic stem cells, adult stem cells maintain this capability throughout the life of an organism. In recent years, scientific advances have suggested that stem cells could be of great potential use in the treatment of a variety of diseases.

  The objective of this graduate school course is to provide the students with information about stem cell origin, their role in early development, their isolation and therapeutic promises for the future. This course will also offer students a great opportunity to take part of recent and ground breaking advances in stem cell biology. All in all, the material presented is intended to evoke more interest in the field of stem cell biology, both for the student, the layman, as well as for the bench scientist.  Ultimately, the long term goal is to encourage future research in finding alternative therapeutic modalities in stem cell-related diseases, such as cancer, Parkinson’s, diabetes, atherosclerosis, congenital diseases, and Alzheimer’s disease. This course is taught by a group of high profile scientists with a broad expertise in stem cell biology, biochemistry, clinical applications, and ethics.