Learn more about an exciting new field!
COURSE CODE:
■ EE/BIOE 425, CSE 488
■ 500-level course credit available for graduate students.
INSTRUCTORS:
■ Georg Seelig, gseelig@ee.washington.edu
■ Alex Rosenberg, abros@uw.edu
■ Shelly Jang, shellyj@uw.edu
DESCRIPTION: This course is an introduction to the practice of synthetic biology: building artificial biochemical reaction networks and devices in bacteria. Synthetic biochemical devices and organisms have applications in cell and tissue engineering, gene therapy, biologically derived drugs and materials, alternative fuels, biosensors, and much more. New tools and approaches are emerging rapidly and promise to make engineering living systems and components broadly useful. Many of these emerging tools are based on tools in computer science (digital logic, automata theory) and electrical engineering (circuit theory, feedback control, signal processing, dynamical systems). In this course you will learn how to program cells with DNA, learn to build genes, make your own transgenic bacteria, and characterize your constructions using PCR, flow cytometry, fluorescence microscopy, DNA sequencing and more.
PREREQUISITES: The course is open to all engineering students and does not assume any background in biology or chemistry (although such background would be very helpful). It will consist of a lecture and a lab. The lab will consist of about six hours a week at the bench (EEB 031) and 3-5 hours working on lab reports and data analysis.