Biotechnology and its Applications,

Unit I – The Cell
1. An introduction to biotechnology
1.1 An agreement with the student
1.2 Misconceptions about biotechnology
1.3 Biotechnology is broad and still expanding

2. Voyage into the cell
2.1 Membranes
2.2 Cellular Transport

3. Proteins
3.1 Amino Acids
3.2 Protein Structure
3.3 The hydrophobic effect
3.4 A return to membranes

4. Genes – The Blueprints for Proteins
4.1 Nucleotides and nucleic acids
4.2 From genes to proteins

5. Cell Growth
5.1 The eukaryotic cell cycle
5.2 Growth curves and their phases
5.3 Mathematics of the growth curve
5.4 Counting cell numbers
5.5 Counting cell mass
5.6 Scale-up

Unit II – Biotechnology in the laboratory
6. Microbial killing
6.1 The Gram stain
6.2 Microbial resistance to killing
6.3 Sterilization, disinfection, and sanitization
6.4 Microbial cell death

7. Cell Culture and the eukaryotic cells used in biotechnology
7.1 Adherent cells versus non-adherent cells
7.2 Primary cells, cancer cells, cell lines
7.3 Care and feeding

8. Fluorescence
8.1 Stokes’s experiments
8.2 Fluorophore properties
8.3 Fluorescence detection
8.4 Fluorescence resonance energy transfer

9. Agarose Gels
9.1 Technical considerations
9.2 Application of agarose gels: gel shift
9.3 Application of agarose gels: DNA footprinting

10. The polymerase chain reaction (PCR)
10.1 Melt
10.2 Anneal
10.3 Extend
10.4 PCR Loops
10.5 An application of traditional PCR
10.6 Traditional versus real-time PCR
10.7 Real-time PCR

11. Genetic Engineering
11.1 Plasmid architecture
11.2 Molecular cloning
11.3 A single plasmid is not enough
11.4 Spectrophotometry

Unit III – Biotechnology in the real world
12. Gene delivery
12.1 Gene delivery vehicles: an overview
12.2 Viral delivery methods
12.3 Physical delivery methods
12.4 Chemical delivery methods
12.5 Preparation of nonviral gene delivery complexes
12.6 What is gene therapy, anyway?

13. RNAi
13.1 Co-suppression
13.2 RNA interference
13.3 miRNA

14. Genome editing
14.1 Targetable nucleases
14.2 Other genome manipulation tools
14.3 Delivery cargo

15. DNA fingerprinting
15.1 Older DNA fingerprinting uses RFLPs
15.2 Newer DNA fingerprinting uses STRs

16. Fermentation, beer, and biofuels
16.1 Glycolysis
16.2 Fermentation
16.3 The production of beer
16.4 Fermentation to produce biofuels

17. Stem cells, tissue engineering, and regenerative medicine
17.1 Stem cells
17.2 Tissue engineering and regenerative medicine

18. Transgenics and genetically modified organisms in agriculture
18.1 Ice-minus bacteria
18.2 Bt plants
18.3 Herbicide resistance
18.4 Tomatoes
18.5 Rice

19. Patents and licenses
19.1 Types of patents
19.2 Licenses
19.3 After a license is granted