This course focuses on the layers of design, from molecular parts to large transcriptional networks in mammalian biology. The course formally introduces concepts in the emerging fields of mammalian systems and synthetic biology, including engineering principles in the design of dynamic systems, molecular design of genetic parts, and integration into the genome.

This course is primarily designed for graduate students and advanced undergraduates looking to dive into topics in mammalian synthetic and systems biology.

The class is broken into several modules beginning with intro to synthetic biology, design principles in systems biology, and unique challenges in mammalian systems. On Tuesdays, we will have a lecture introduce the week’s topic and on Thursdays we will have our reviewed the literature through a “speed journal club” based on five selected papers and five-student paired papers. In the speed journal club format, students have five minutes and one slide to summarize the paper, finding, and relevance. Over the course of the class, we cover ~80 papers.

Sure, here it is for 2024, 2022, and 2021. But keep in mind that each year the class changes a bit as the material is updating and structured assignments and group projects are adapted to the cohort of students that enroll. 

We have a primer to get you going from mass action kinetics to Hill Functions, etc.  This will require some extra time as the modeling project is a central part of the course. Students have done very simple to very sophisticated modeling which has been included in published journal articles and theses.

No, but that does help. As long as you are willing to learn basic molecular biology and have a solid foundation in kinetics, thermodynamics, and differential equations, you successfully engage with the material.