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| Synthetic
Biology Curriculum Expands with New Courses |
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| The NSF-funded Synthetic
Biology Engineering Research Center (SynBERC) has made exceptional inroads
this year in the effort to train a new generation of synthetic biologists
by developing and launching a series of courses at the graduate, undergraduate,
and high school levels. The courses reflect not just the scientific
and engineering goals of the field, but also its social and ethical dimensions.
Some of these courses are available outside the host university through
online modules at openwetware.org, and a course on the Fundamentals of
Synthetic Biology was taught at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science
and Technology (KAIST) in Daejeon, Korea. SynBERC is headquartered at the
University of California, Berkeley.
Among the new courses SynBERC
created recently are:
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Synthetic Biology Lab: “SynBio
Boot Camp.” A laboratory course designed as an introduction to
research in Synthetic Biology, a ground-up approach to genetic engineering
with applications in bioenergy, healthcare, materials science, and chemical
production. Students will design and execute a real research project,
and will learn about methods and design concepts in synthetic biology.
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Team Challenge: Molecular
Design - Reading and Engineering the Recognition Code. This new
one-week intensive all-day class for first-year graduate students combines
experiments and computational simulation, where teams of 4-5 students work
towards solving a challenge question posed to the teams at the beginning
of the week.
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Genetic Devices.
This graduate-level course is a comprehensive survey of genetic devices.
These DNA-based constructs are comprised of multiple “parts” that together
encode a higher-level biological behavior and perform useful human-defined
functions.
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Biopower in the Contemporary
Life Sciences. A mixed undergraduate- and graduate-level introduction
to and discussion of questions of culture and power in the contemporary
life sciences, with special attention to synthetic biology.
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Ars Synthetica.
This graduate-level collaborative seminar is geared to the production of
media for the Ars Synthetica Project, a Web-based multimedia forum for
engaging specialists and non-specialists in an informed, ethical, and democratic
dialogue on the emerging field of synthetic biology.
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To learn more
about this topic visit:
Synthetic
Biology Engineering Research Center (SynBERC)
http://www.synberc.org
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