Quantitative Biology of the Living Cell

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Instructor

Prof Jenna Rickus rickus@purdue.edu

Course Description

This course is an introduction to cellular engineering. We will explore frameworks, possibilities, ethics, and tools for engineering living cells.

Assignments and Class Schedule

August 28th

In Class. Go over syllabus, course goals, openwetware, and software

Assignment. complete before next week.

1. Create an account on Openwetware
2. Read the wiki help on openwetware
3. Create your own wiki page that links to this course page. Name your page "Biol295F_LASTNAME"
4. Download and Install Systems Biology Workbench and Cell Designer
5. Start reading NIH Stem Cell Basics

Sept 4th

In Class.

1. Quest Speaker. 5 minutes. Jennifer Nordland. Soybean Competition
2. Frit-O-Lay Visit. 10 minutes
3. Big Picture: Cellular Engineering
4. Assignment:

Look up one of these 6 entities. Report on the who, what, where, when, and how of what these companies do. What is their status today?

Biobricks Foundation (Cambridge Mass), Blue Heron Biotechnology (Bothel Washington), Amyris Biotechnologies (Emeryville, CA), Codon Devices (Cambridge, Mass), Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution (Gainesville, FL), Synthetic Genomics (Rockville, Md)

1 page written. 5 minutes oral to the class.

Due next week.

Sept 11

1. Student reports from last week's assignment
2. test of email list
3. blackboard
4. continue cellular engineering slides
5. begin stem cells
6. stem cell policy
7. introduce bioethics essay assignment
8. Begin CellDesigner

Due next week: a typed outline or listing of your thoughts regarding "do biological engineers need a code of ethics?"

Sept 18

1. Dr. Rickus' rules of writing :)
2. Create a CellDesigner model of glycolysis
3. One on one - go over last weeks graded writing assignments

Due next week: a first draft of your essay regarding "do biological engineers need a code of ethics?"

Sept 25

1. Peer Review of Bioethics essays
2. Introduction to BioModels Database
3. In class .... BioModels Assignment - finding glycolysis models

CHANGE!!! Draft #2 of Bioethics Essay is now due Oct 9th.

Oct 2

1. discussion / lecture of biological oscillations
2. In class .... Cell Designer Assignment - Create Structure of Goldbeter PER TIM model

Remember ... Final Draft of Bioethics Essay due Oct 9th in class.

References

Stem Cell Biology

1. NIH Stem Cell Basics

Policy and Ethics

1. U.S. Policy on Use of Stem Cells. NIH link
2. Article arguing for a code of ethics for Biological Engineers. IBE code of ethics
3. AAAS Report on Stem Cell Policy and Ethics [1]

Useful Links

Help Editing Wiki's

Wikipedia's Tutorial on Editing Wiki's

Web of Science- for literature review

PubMed - for literature review

Entrez - quick keyword based search across literature, protein, gene, etc databases simultaneously

ExPASy Protein Database

link to Genbank - "GenBank® is the NIH genetic sequence database, an annotated collection of all publicly available DNA sequences"

BioBricks

BioModels Database this site is a searchable database of published annotated models. These models can be accessed and used within CellDesigner

Class Discussion Board

post any comments, questions etc. here

Links to Student Pages

• Janie's Page
• Emily's Page
• Tim's Page
• Dylan's Page
• Kim's Page
• Corey's Page
• Josh's Page
• Jacob's Page