General provisions

The course is offered as part of the Master's programs in the Faculty of Medicine.

Entry requirements

Admitted to the Master Programme in Medical Research

Knowledge in English equivalent to that required for basic eligibility to Swedish higher education on basic level.

Learning outcomes

The course aims to provide theoretical knowledge of current biomedical methods and their practical application during the design, performance, analysis and troubleshooting phases of the experimental projects.

On completion of the course, the student shall be able to:

• Describe strategies to select genes of interest for the experiments
• Design basic nucleic acid-based molecular biology experiments, e.g. PCR (primer-design, choice of polymerase, PCR optimization etc.) and downstream analysis methodology (gel-electrophoresis, Sanger sequencing etc.)
• Strategize evaluation of expression for the gene(s) of interest, including expression level and location
• Account for basic and advanced methods of mutagenesis including their advantages and limitations
• Identify, isolate and characterize proteins of interest from different origin by means of biochemical methods (e.g. masspectrometry, expression of recombinant proteins, NMR)
• Recognize and analyse posttranslational modifications (including glycosylation, phosphorylation, ubiquitination)
• Describe functional assays at a molecular and cellular level
• Understand how to characterize protein structures, and use them to perform basic modelling tasks (e.g. identify suitable mutation sites, potential drug target sites, and functional protein domains for recombinant expression)
• Recognize and critically validate the advantages and limitations of different biological model systems (i.e. cell lines, yeast, nematode, Drosophila, Zebra fish, mouse, higher vertebrates)

Content

The course describes a broad spectrum of molecular biology techniques used in current biomedical research with the aim to give the student a thorough understanding on possibilities and pitfalls of these techniques. The scope of methodology from handling DNA sequences, to protein characterization and analysis at a cellular level shall equip the student with a capacity to understand and apply these methods in future research, and also to be able to critically interpret other researchers´ data.

Instruction

Teaching will be performed with lectures, complemented with student activating mandatory education (seminars, journal clubs and laboratory sessions). The longitudinal project experiments (started during the earlier courses on the programme) will be used as model projects and continued along the course.

Assessment

Examination includes a written exam graded fail (U), pass (G) or pass with distinction (VG). The complementary assignments will be examined at seminars or through oral and/or written reports and will be graded fail (U) or pass (G) only.

To pass the course the students have to attend and be active in all compulsory sessions. The grading from exam(s) and assignments will together generate a final weighted course grade. Possibility for completion of not approved compulsory assignments may be given at the earliest at next course and only in case of a vacancy. Students who have failed the first examination are allowed five re-examinations.

If there exist special reasons the examiner can give allowance for alternative sets of assessment to examine an individual student. Specific conditions may e.g. be special pedagogic support described by the university’s coordinator for special support.