Columbia University - Department of Biological Sciences
C2908 - First Year Seminar in Modern Biology - Fall 2009

  Wednesday  2:40-3:55, 415 Schapiro Instructor: Dr. Alice Heicklen Home Pages

This course gives you a chance to hear about the latest research being conducted by scientists at Columbia University. Attendance at lectures required. After each lecture, you should write a summary of the talk you heard (1/2 to 1 page, maximum) and email it (pasted into the body of your message) to my assistant Christina Panas at cap2115@biology.columbia.edu within a week after each seminar. You can check the Grade Book at CourseWorks to verify that your assignments have been recorded 1 week after the assignment was due.  Grading is based on attendance and timely submission of summaries.

September

October

November

December

9 16 23 30 7 14 21 28 4 11 18 25 2 9
September 9 No class
September 16 Dr. Stephen Rayport, Department of Psychiatry, Columbia Medical Center, and NYSPI
  Schizophrenia
September 23

Dr. Richard Robinson, Department of Pharmacology, Columbia Medical Center

  Cardiac ion channel function and autonomic signaling cascades
September 30 Dr. Clark Hung, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Columbia University
  Joint repair
October 7 Dr. Alla Grishok, Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biophysics, Columbia Medical Center
  Short RNAs, chromatin, and expression in C. elegans

October 14

Dr. Benjamin Ohlstein, Department of Genetics & Development, Columbia Medical Center
  Intestinal stem cells in Drosophila
October 21 Dr. Alice Prince, Department of Pharmacology, Columbia Medical Center
  Immune response to respiratory viruses
October 28 Dr. John Loike, Department of Physiology & Cell Biophysics, Columbia Medical Center
  Battle of the titans: leukocytes, bacteria, and cancer
November 4 Dr. Ruben Gonzalez, Department of Chemistry, Columbia University
  Ribosomal protein synthesis
November 11 Dr. Eric Greene, Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biophysics, Columbia Medical Center
 

DNA recombination and repair

November 18 Dr. Brian McCabe, Department of Physiology & Cell Biophysics, Columbia Medical Center
  Synaptic development

November 25

Thanksgiving - no class
December 2 Dr. Christopher Henderson, Departments of Pathology & Cell Biology, and Neurology, Columbia Medical Center
  Neuronal stem cells
December 9 Dr. John Hunt, Department of Biological Sciences, Columbia University
  Structural Genomics

Grading
Everyone begins with an A. Every missed class decreases your grade one step: A to A-, A- to B+, etc. If you attend class but do not turn in a summary, this counts as if you missed the class. In addition, you must each ask two questions during the semester to keep your grade.


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Dr. Alice Heicklen Department of Biological Sciences Columbia University