ECOL/MCB 320H Honors Genetics Spring 2007  Send problems and corrections to birky@u.arizona.edu If you can't access this site, try again an hour later; it may be down for modifications and additions for anywhere from a few minutes to an hour or more.

This site contains information specific to the Honors section of Genetics. Information for the class as a whole, including the Honors section, is on the ECOL 320 web site.

Link to ECOL 320

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENTS!! Check this site periodically for announcements, corrections, additions, etc. 3/22 Note change in schedule of oral presentations: Tonya is moved to April 20.

FACULTY ****

Dr. C. William (Bill) Birky, Jr.

(instructor in charge)

Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Graduate Interdisciplinary Program in Genetics

Office: 318 Biological Sciences West

Phone: 626-6513

E-mail: birky@u.arizona.edu

Office hours: Thursday 11-12 through April 5, then by appointment.

Birky Lab Web Site

Lectures	MWF 11-11:50	Chemistry 111
Honors	F 1-1:50	Social Sciences 307
Discussion	F 2:250	Education 211

GRADING Your grade will be based on a total of 600 points for exams, quizzes, and homework assigned to everybody in ECOL/MCB 320. In addition, since the Honors course is worth 5 credits instead of 4 for the regular course, you will have an additional 150 points of exercises, to be announced. These will focus on reading original literature in genetics, including classical as well as more recent papers. Useful hints for oral or written presentations or short written assignments: HintsTermPapers&Seminars.pdf Point distribution: Points will be assigned to exercises as needed. Your total score will be multiplied by 150/x where x is the total points for all exercises.

DATE	ASSIGNMENT
Jan. 12	Read: Text Chapter 1
Jan. 19	Read: Watson&Crick53DNAStructure.pdf  Do assignment: Assignment1.doc Assignment1Answers.doc
Jan. 26	Read: WatsonCrick53DNAReplication.pdf; Meselson-Stahl1958.pdf; Platt64StrongInference.pdf Do assignment:Assignment2.doc (updated 1/25) Assignment2Answers.doc
Feb. 2	Do assignment Assignment3.doc
Feb. 9	NO CLASS
Feb. 16	Read: Hauf04KinetochoreOrient.pdf Petronczki06WatanabeComment.pdf Do asssignment: Write a short answer to the following question: What gene(s) and protein(s) are essential to the difference between reductional and equational segregation? Another way of thinking about this would be what genes are required for meiosis I that are not required for meiosis II and mitosis?
Feb. 23	Read: Ramesh05GiardiaRecombGenes.pdf Birky05SexInGiardia.pdf Do asssignment: Read the paper by Ramesh et al. and my commentary on that paper. Read: HintsTermPapers&Seminars.pdf
March 2	Discussion of how to give presentations. Lecture on evolutionary advantage of sex. AdvantageOfSexTalk.pdf
March 9	Oral presentations
March 16	NO CLASS
March 23	Oral presentations
March 30	Oral presentations
April 6	NO CLASS
April 13	Oral presentations
April 20	Oral presentations
April 27	To be announced

ORAL PRESENTATION SCHEDULE Powerpoint; a Mac laptop will be available if you want to put your talk on a USB flash drive or a CD, but be sure your talk is completely compatible with the Mac if it was made on a PC. Time limit 12 minutes + 3 minutes for discussion and questions   March 9 Brandon Globin mutants Daidone Evolutionary of X and Y chromosomes Jackson Epigenetics   March 23 Ortega RNAi Sikder Human chromosome defects (Down's etc.)   March 30 Graham Bacterial genetics: conjugation McCune Bacterial genetics: transduction Steadman Bacterial genetics: transformation   April 13 Gray Origin of human HIV   April 20 Ramey HIV genome compared to other retroviruses Sullivan Pharmacogenetics   April 27 Stein Gene therapy