Entry requirements

The general rules stated by the Curriculum Committee of the Faculty of Pharmacy (see programme curriculum). For entry to the separate course, students are required to fulfil the basic requirements for university entry and to have passed the Bachelor of Pharmaceutical Science degree, 80 points, or have the equivalent knowledge acquired in a medical, veterinary science, dental, pharmaceutical, scientific or foreign degree course.

Aims

The course aims to give the student knowledge from a genomics perspective about how cells express their life functions and retain them genetically and about the variation of the genetic molecules. This includes the use of molecular biological, genetic, biochemical and bioinformatic tools and development of drugs with the aid of this knowledge.

Content

The course comprises fundamental genetic concepts, the organisation of the genes and genomes and variations in typical prokaryotic and eukaryotic organisms and in well-known viruses and plasmids, the nature of heredity, the connection between genotype and phenotype, chemical, biophysical and structural aspects of nucleic acids, proteins, communication of the genetic information to RNA and protein in prokaryotic and eukaryotic systems, factors governing transport, folding and elimination of proteins and RNA, biological regulation, modification of genomes by mutations and recombination processes, the evolutionary process, DNA repair, population genetics, replication and the cell cycle, genetic and molecular biological methods, including, for example, mutagenesis, genetic communication, restriction mapping, cloning, hybridisation, PCR, nucleotide sequencing, techniques for nucleic acid purification, interaction studies, biocombinatorics and their use in connection with production of new drugs, biological databases and bioinformatic aids, production and investigation of gene and genomic libraries, mapping of genes and genomes, use of plasmids, phages and viruses as vectors, expression of biomolecules for production purposes or gene therapy, use of genomic formats in expression analysis and genotyping.

Instruction

The course comprises lectures, group exercises and laboratory sessions.

Compulsory parts of the course: Participation in laboratory sessions and certain group presentations.

Assessment

Written examinations are held at the end of the course. Students are required to pass the written examination (examination code) and compulsory parts of the course (examination code). Repetition of compulsory parts of the course may be done in connection with the next course at the earliest and then only if there is a vacancy. Students may resit the examination four to five weeks after completion of the course. Students are allowed to sit the examination up to six times, i.e. the first examination and five re-examinations.