Come learn the science behind hijacking living organisms to perform all kinds of helpful processes faster and cheaper than ever before! Over the course of four weeks, an ongoing undergraduate research project will be used as the framework for this course.

This four-week course will cover basic principles of optics and their application to traditional microscopy, and discuss popular methods of imaging biological samples using traditional microscopes. As the course progresses, we will transition into more advanced microscopy techniques, including electron microscopy, breaking the diffraction limit, fluorescence, and optical trapping. Each topic will include real-life examples of applications of the microscopes described.

The central dogma of molecular biology was always believed to be DNA is transcribed to RNA, which is then transcribed to protein. But in recent years the discovery of micro RNAs and other non-coding RNAs have shown that there is an entire field of genetic regulatory machinery provided by RNA. This class will cover the different types of non-coding RNA, their native functions in cells, and the ways that researchers can hijack these functions in experimental design.