PHC 7650 MINICOURSES
SPECIAL COURSE OFFERINGS FOR WINTER, 2004

Each session will consist of 3 hours of lecture per week for 4 weeks and will be allotted 1 credit. Class meeting times will be arranged with the instructors. An organizational meeting for all courses will be held on Wednesday, January 14th at 1:00 PM in the Pharmacology Library (6364 Scott Hall). Contact the listed instructors for course details or R. Yamazaki (ryamazak@med.wayne.edu) for general information.
Session 1
January 20 - February 13
Session 2
February 16 - March 12
Session 3
March 15 - April 9
DNA topoisomerases as chemotherapeutic targets

Hai-Young Wu

Course description: Based on the biochemistry of enzymes that regulate DNA supercoiling, we will discuss the molecular details for the therapeutic uses of DNA topoisomerase poisons as anticancer and antibacterial agents.

 

Light Microscopy: Theory and Practice

Robert Silver

Co-listing: BME 7995.

2 Credits

Description: The Microscopy Mini-Course is oriented to the practical - and requires a firm course work founding in fundamentals of wave and ray optics, mathematics, at least at the calculus level, and an understanding of the basis of fluorescence. The course will begin with a review of the relevant physics, and proceed with various microscopy methods (e.g., brightfield, darkfield, phase contrast, differential interference contrast, polarized light, fluorescence, widefield and confocal methods). Students will find it important to understand real signals (not post-translational modification of proteins), how an image is formed, and what a particular image represents. Discussions will include overviews of available image detection/capture methods, and critiques of several current and classical scientific papers that rely on microscopy. Hands-on sessions are planned with both widefield and confocal microscopes. The final examination will involve material covered in the course.
Fluorescence: Theory and Techniques

David Kessel

This course will cover both the theory and the practice of fluorescence as 
an analytical technique. Topics will include the use of fluorescence in 
quantitative analysis, for localization of sites of sub-cellular alterations, and for detection of biologic properties. Techniques will include bulk fluorescence measurements, fluorescence lifetimes, 
polarization and quenching, and fluorescence microscopy.
 Introduction to Bioinformatics

Dr. Alan Dombkowski, IEHS

Description: This mini-course will cover the content and use of common 
bioinformatics resources, particularly the NCBI databases and associated 
tools. The format of the course will include considerable hands-on computer 
practice.
Kinase and Phosphatase Signalling Pathways

Drs. Kimberley Woodcroft and Paul Stemmer, IEHS

Description: This mini-course will examine, through the use of current 
scientific literature, kinase and phosphatase signalling pathways. The 
course will examine not only the current knowledge and theories in this 
area, but also the methodologies being used to study these topics. The 
topics to be covered are likely to include: receptor tyrosine kinases, 
receptor serine/threonine kinases, cytokine receptors and JAK/STAT 
signalling, extracellular matrix signaling, MAP kinases, phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase signalling, non-receptor protein kinases, cyclin-dependent kinases, and phosphatases. The format of the course will include didactic lecture, in combination with student-led presentation and discussion of recent papers on each topic. Students will be graded based on 
their presentation of papers, participation in discussion, and at least one 
written test.
Nuclear Receptors

Drs. Thomas Kocarek and Melissa Runge-Morris, IEHS

Description: This mini-course will explore several topics in the nuclear 
receptor field, with special emphasis on emerging themes and methods. The 
format of the course will include a combination of didactic lecture and 
discussion of the current primary literature. Students will be graded based 
on class participation and performance on one exam.

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