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CSU Monterey Bay - Bio 241 - Introduction to Cell & Molecular Biology |
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Syllabus Fall 2008
Henrik Kibak Ph.D.
(831)582-4144
Office:
3rd Floor Chapman Science Bldg.
(Bldg 53 rm e309) |
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Bio 241 Meets Tue - Thu 8:25 - 9:50 am
Building 18 Room 118
Dr. Kibak's office hours for this course are Wednesdays 9:00 - Noon. |
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| CSUMB prides itself on making every effort to provide access to instruction for students with disabilities. The Student Disabilities Resources website describes the potential accommodations that are available (http://sdr.csumb.edu). Should you require accommodations, please make an appointment Student Disability Resources at (831)582-3672 as soon as possible for arrangements. Dr. Kibak must be notified of the arrangements by September 8th, 2008. |
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Introduction to Cell & Molecular Biology (Bio 241) is the second semester of the CSUMB core biology series for science majors. The course is rigorous and chemistry-based, so students must have passed Chem 110 and Chem 111 to register for this class. Bio 241 assumes a reasonable high school biology background.* If the student has a poor or no high school biology background, completing Bio 204, Introduction to Life Sciences, first is suggested. While it is possible to take Bio 241 before Bio 240, students who take Bio 240 first tend to do better. Finally, it is very difficult to pass Bio 242, Plant and Animal Form and Function, without having first passed Bio 240 & 241.
The required text is Biological Science, 3rd Edition by Scott Freeman (ISBN 0-13-224950-2) or the paperback version, Volume 1 (ISBN 0-13-225308-9). Volume 1 contains only the chapters relevant to this semester.
Completing Introduction to Cell & Molecular Biology (Bio 241) with a grade of C or better ensures that the student is prepared for upper division SEP Biology lecture courses in biochemistry, molecular biology, cell biology, and genetics. The course is both a terminology course and a process course. Because scientific terms have very precise meanings and upper division courses will assume the student has a command of modern biological vocabulary, one of the great challenges of this lower division course is learning all the words. But students will also be able to identify and describe the processes driving life at a cellular level. Students will be able to relate the structures of macromolecules, organelles, and cells to their functions. Students will be able to describe how cells harness energy, interact with their environment, and reproduce themselves. Much of the material students will be exposed to in this course is very recent knowledge as the rate of progress in cell and molecular biology is breath-taking!
Note: Contrary to information in the online description of courses, if a student is required to take Bio 241L (the lab), it must be taken concurrently or after passing Bio 241. All biology majors must eventually take the lab, but not all ESSP majors have to take the lab. Please check with your academic advisor.
Assessment
The schedule of topics also lists the exam dates and the project due date. The four exams are mildly comprehensive and broadly cover biological macromolecules, cellular bioenergetics, genetic processes, and biotechnology. The semester long Integrative Project provides students an opportunity to perform sequence analysis in the context of the central dogma of molecular biology. These five assessments are worth 100 points each. All other quizzes and coursework are voluntary and not graded. Because this is an outcomes-based course the assessments are carefully designed so that if a student masters two thirds of the assessment, they will have met the outcomes for that assessment and receive a "C." No assessment grades are "curved" and students are not graded according to a normal distribution. However, scoring above 70 on all five assessments entitles the student to an additional 20 points. Final letter grades are assigned according to the following scale.
F 0-269 D- 270-289 D 290-309 D+ 310-329 C- 330-349
C 350-369 C+ 370-389 B- 390-409 B 410-429 B+ 430-449
A- 450-469 A 470-489 A+ 490-500
After passing the first exam the student will be able to describe the structures of nucleic acids, sugars, and amino acids, how they are polymerized and organized to form macromolecules, the forces leading to that organization, and how the specific classes of macromolecule function in the cellular environment. Students will also understand the organization and structure of biological membranes, and be able to describe the molecular forces behind that organization.
After passing the second exam the student will be able to relate the structure of organelles to their functions, describe some representative interactions between cells, the process of energy transduction in the cell, the catabolic processes of glucose metabolism, oxidative phosphorylation of ADP, photosynthetic ATP production and photoreduction of NADP. Students will understand which processes occur in the chloroplast, how energy is shunted towards ATP production or starch production, how carbon is fixed into the biosphere, and the origin of atmospheric oxygen. Students will understand which processes occur in the mitochondrion, how pyruvate catabolism drives the electron and proton transport, how membrane potential can be used to drive chemical reactions, where carbon dioxide evolves and where oxygen is reduced to water.
After passing the third exam the student will be able to provide experimental evidence for processes that take place during the cell cycle, explain how we know that DNA is the genetic material, explain how somatic cells divide while ensuring that daughter cells each receive the same complement of DNA, explain how reproductive cells are formed through meiosis, give the details on how meiosis explains Mendelian genetics, provide the biochemical basis of DNA replication, use the genetic code to explain why some mutations are silent, provide a thorough description of molecular biology's central dogma including exceptions to the dogma.
After passing the fourth exam the student will be able to describe how transcription and translation are regulated in prokaryotes and eukaryotes, understand how RNA processing, mRNA turnover, protein turnover, and microRNA's function to affect gene expression, explain how cDNA libraries are constructed and used, describe how plant cells can be transformed, provide details and applications of gene sequencing technology, and review how genomes from the different branches of life are organized.
After completing the three-part semester-long integrative assignment the student will be able to compare the properties of cytoplasmic and membrane proteins, compare the structure of prokaryotic and eukaryotic genes, give specific examples of how "DNA makes RNA makes protein," prepare careful alignments of related DNA and protein sequences, estimate the relatedness of genes based on those alignments, identify evolutionarily conserved regions of genes and speculate on the function of those regions, and understand the implications of a redundant genetic code.
Instructor Access
Dr. Kibak rarely responds to email from Bio 241 students. He is accessible by office hours and by telephone. If a student wishes a response by email, the student must call Dr. Kibak and leave a message that the email has been sent. Even then a response may take 48-72 hours. The Fall 2008 Tutor for Bio 241 is Joshua Hess. He is available through ASAP.
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