Genetics: Analysis and Applications
How do we know what we know about heredity? Enhance your scientific thinking and experimental design skills with this in-depth adventure through genetics.
Course Information
Certificate Track
Learn for Free
About this Course
This is the second genetics course in a three-part series. Building upon the concepts from biochemistry, genetics, and molecular biology from our 7.00x Introductory Biology MOOC, these genetics courses go to a new level of depth. What are the types of genetic changes? How do nature and scientists create these genetic variations? How do we design and perform analyses to identify the genetic basis to a trait or disease?
Professors Peter Reddien and Mary Gehring will challenge you to expand your understanding of genetics. You will study the variety of genetic changes, different approaches to genetic analyses, and the impact of genetics on development and behavior.
We developed the 7.03x Genetics series with an emphasis on:
- Developing your scientific thinking skills including articulating hypotheses, designing experiments, performing thought experiments, and interpreting data.
- Using data based on real scientific experiments and highlighting the scientific process in assessments.
- Asserting that biology is an active field that changes daily through examples of research and relevance to medicine, not static information in a textbook.
- Uniting themes and principles that inform how scientists conduct and interpret research.
- Implementing the science of learning in the course design.
What you'll learn
- How to appreciate the applications of genetics to everyday life.
- How to apply terminology appropriately to concepts in genetics.
- How to justify the use of specific techniques and methods for answering different genetic questions.
- How to analyze the location and type of mutation or chromosomal change.
- How to find or create mutants of interest.
- How to explain the impact of genetics on development and behavior.
Prerequisites
Undergraduate introductory genetics and and molecular biology (as found in 7.00x Introductory Biology and 7.03.1x Genetics)
Meet your instructors
Peter Reddien
Professor of Biology; Associate Department Head; Core Member and Associate Director of the Whitehead Institute; Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator
Professor Peter Reddien’s lab investigates how stem cells are regulated to regenerate missing tissues. They study the cellular events involved in this process and the attendant roles for regulatory genes that control regeneration steps. They utilize an array of methodologies, including high-throughput sequencing, RNA interference (RNAi) screening, and numerous assays and tools for phenotypic analysis to characterize regeneration regulatory genes. Learn more from the lab website.
