Advances in Microbial Biotechnology
Credit Hour(s): 3 Units
Instructor(s): Ju
Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): Grade of C- or above in MicrBio 4100; or BioChem 4511 or 5613; or PHR 3200
Role in Microbiology Major: Group 1 Elective
Lecture Topics:
- Origins of modern biotechnology
- Foundation, mechanisms, and applications of recombinant DNA technologies
- Principles of genetic engineering and synthetic biology
- Applied genomics
- Applications of vaccines and antibodies
- Mechanisms and applications of industrial enzymes and biocatalysis
- Discovery and engineering of natural products
- Antibiotics, herbicides, and commodity chemicals
- Selected topics in chemical biology
Learning Outcomes:
Successful students will be able to...
- Knowledgeably describe historical origins of microbial biotechnology
- Understand commonly employed methods in microbial biotechnology
- Knowledgeably describe the origin, methods, and impact of genetic engineering and applications of genomics in biotechnology
- Understand the antibody function, engineering and applications
- Understand the application of microbial enzymes, and principles of biocatalysis and protein engineering
- Understand the application of microbes in the production of commodity chemicals
- Understand the role of microbial natural products, their discovery, and applications
- Understand the major discoveries and impacts of microbes in chemical biology
- Critically evaluate research papers, accurately interpret raw and processed data sets
- Identify key findings of research papers and explain them clearly to an audience of peers
- Identify strong arguments supported by conclusive data; identify weak arguments supported by inconclusive data
- Argue the merits and/or weaknesses of published work from a knowledgeable perspective