BIOL41015: Frontiers in Cell Biology and Applications in Biotechnology

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• To have a deep Understanding of Cell biology at an advanced level.
• To introduce methods and limitations of current tissue modelling practice and model systems.
• To explain and design current methods to model biological systems at a level needed in industrial practice.
• To explain and apply strategies for the translation of fundamental science to biotechnological innovations.

• The content of Fundamentals in Biotechnology will be delivered using a combination of lectures, workshops and seminars.
• The lecture material will provide a deep understanding of cell biology, tissue modelling, protein structure, model systems in Biosciences, disease modelling needed to appreciate current advances in biotechnological produces. The lecture material covers key developmental processes and examples of their use.
• Workshop activities are aligned with the seminar series to illustrate how the processes discussed in the lectures are applied in the real world. These will cover visits to e.g. the animal facility, mammalian cell culture and genomics and will be covering the following topics: understanding Cell Biology, Stem cells and tissues, Protein structure and modelling, Molecular biology (genome engineering), Model organisms for Biosciences, Disease modelling, Technologies to explore infectious diseases.

Subject-specific Knowledge:

• Deep understanding of cell biology, tissue modelling and model systems in biosciences.
• Understanding of strategies for the translation of fundamental science to biotechnological innovations.

Subject-specific Skills:

• Be able to critical evaluate model systems used in Biotechnology.
• Be able to interpret and analyse the main breakthrough discoveries for biotechnology improvement.
• Be able to design strategies for solving biotechnological challenges.
• Be able to critically evaluate biotechnological problems.

Key Skills:

• Critical evaluation of current biotechnology and the model systems used for innovation.
• The ability to solve problems and answer questions on which biotechnology is best used for addressing problems, proving hypothesis etc.
• Interpretation and understanding of management and scientific information from relevant sources (scientific publications, lectures, textbooks, online sources).
• Team building and working, negotiation and consensus building.

• Lectures, seminars and workshops focusing on the most relevant biotechnological processes.
• Group workshops to elaborate critical thinking and develop communication, data management and problem-solving skills.
• To assess the student understanding of biotechnological processes, the students will need to undertake an assignment in the style of a written test, and a summative essay where they design a scientific question and elaborate on the techniques needed to answer that question.

A formative assessment will be used to test knowledge and give students practice in summative essay and written test. The students will receive feedback (both individual and group) to enable them to assess their understanding of material.

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