Discover what controls how fast tiny molecular motors in our body pull through a single strand of DNA. How hard can the motor pull in a tug of war with the optical tweezers? Discover what helps it pull harder. Do all molecular motors behave the same?

This course, intended for both graduate and upper level undergraduate students, will focus on understanding of the basic molecular structural principles of biological materials. It will address the molecular structures of various materials of biological origin, such as several types of collagen, silk, spider silk, wool, hair, bones, shells, protein adhesives, GFP, and self-assembling peptides. It will also address molecular design of new biological materials applying the molecular structural principles. The long-term goal of this course is to teach molecular design of new biological materials for a broad range of applications. A brief history of biological materials and its future perspective as well as its impact to the society will also be discussed. Several experts will be invited to give guest lectures.

Students perform an activity similar to the childhood “telephone” game in which each communication step represents a biological process related to the passage of DNA from one cell to another. This game tangibly illustrates how DNA mutations can happen over several cell generations and the effects the mutations can have on the proteins that cells need to produce. Next, students use the results from the “telephone” game (normal, substitution, deletion or insertion) to test how the mutation affects the survivability of an organism in the wild. Through simple enactments, students act as “predators” and “eat” (remove) the organism from the environment, demonstrating natural selection based on mutation.

Students learn about mutations to both DNA and chromosomes, and uncontrolled changes to the genetic code. They are introduced to small-scale mutations (substitutions, deletions and insertions) and large-scale mutations (deletion duplications, inversions, insertions, translocations and nondisjunctions). The effects of different mutations are studied as well as environmental factors that may increase the likelihood of mutations. A PowerPoint® presentation and pre/post-assessments are provided.

This course focuses on the latest scientific developments and discoveries in the field of nanomechanics, the study of forces and motion on extremely tiny (10-9 m) areas of synthetic and biological materials and structures. At this level, mechanical properties are intimately related to chemistry, physics, and quantum mechanics. Most lectures will consist of a theoretical component that will then be compared to recent experimental data (case studies) in the literature. The course begins with a series of introductory lectures that describes the normal and lateral forces acting at the atomic scale. The following discussions include experimental techniques in high resolution force spectroscopy, atomistic aspects of adhesion, nanoindentation, molecular details of fracture, chemical force microscopy, elasticity of single macromolecular chains, intermolecular interactions in polymers, dynamic force spectroscopy, biomolecular bond strength measurements, and molecular motors.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"The gut microbiome (GM) plays an integral role in overall human health, yet over 70% of human GM species have never been cultured, and these microbes may hold important clues into the function of the human GM and GM-host interactions. To address this gap, researchers recently cultured 10,558 bacterial isolates representing 400 GM species from 239 healthy human donors. Of the 400 cultured species, 102 new species were identified and characterized, 28 new genera and 3 new families were proposed, and 115 genomes were newly sequenced. These data were used to construct the human Gut Microbial Biobank, an open-access resource containing taxonomic and genetic information on over 80% of the dominant microbial taxa in the human gut. Although numerous gut microbes remain uncultured, the Gut Microbial Biobank sheds new light on the identities and functions of the microbes composing the human GM and has potential applications in the development of next-generation probiotics..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Like a symphony, the earliest moments of life play out with incredible precision. Take the fruit fly embryo. Unlike a human embryo, where a single cell becomes many through repeated rounds of cell division, the early embryo of the fruit fly starts as a single nucleus that then divides into thousands of nuclei, all within the same cell. During these divisions, the nuclei must navigate through the embryo to highly specific locations before they become separated into the thousands of cells that will eventually develop into an adult fly. A new report in Cell describes how these nuclei steer themselves to where they need to be. To uncover the mechanisms that drive nuclear positioning and cell cycle synchronization, the team developed state-of-the-art imaging and computational tools to manipulate and track cell cycle and cytoskeletal dynamics in early embryogenesis. Additionally, the team used optogenetic methods to manipulate cytoskeletal contractility with spatial and temporal accuracy..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This Ology website for kids focuses on Genetics. It includes activities, things to make, quizzes, interviews with working scientists, and more to help kids learn about Genetics.

Did you ever imagine that you can use light to move a microscopic plastic bead? Explore the forces on the bead or slow time to see the interaction with the laser's electric field. Use the optical tweezers to manipulate a single strand of DNA and explore the physics of tiny molecular motors. Can you get the DNA completely straight or stop the molecular motor?

Did you ever imagine that you can use light to move a microscopic plastic bead? Explore the forces on the bead or slow time to see the interaction with the laser's electric field. Use the optical tweezers to manipulate a single strand of DNA and explore the physics of tiny molecular motors. Can you get the DNA completely straight or stop the molecular motor?

Some tips to prepare, load and run your agarose gel to analize your PCR product or digested vector!

in the following video you can find a list of useful free on-line tools for DNA sequence analisys.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Genetic sequencing is faster and cheaper than ever. But are the latest techniques more reliable than traditional ones? Scientists at the Dasman Diabetes Institute and Kuwait University are investigating that question for one of the trickiest genetic diseases to diagnose: autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease. ADPKD is an inherited disease in which clusters of fluid-filled cysts accumulate in both kidneys, leading to increased kidney volume, impaired kidney functions, and, ultimately, kidney failure. In fact, ADPKD is the fourth leading cause of kidney failure, affecting one in every 800 to 1000 people worldwide. People with ADPKD may also develop cysts in the liver and other complications. The cause: mutations in genes PKD1 and PKD2. Genetic diagnosis allows doctors to detect the disease before symptoms even arise. The gold standard for doing so is Sanger sequencing. This technique sequences one DNA fragment at a time to detect mutations in the genome..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

The advent of rapid methods for sequencing DNA has resulted in major advances in our understanding of the Evolution and distribution of a wide variety of marine organisms. Join Scripps researcher Ron Burton as he describes the surprising array of applications for these techniques in marine science. (56 minutes)

In this activity, students are assigned different alleles of the gene for phenylalanine hydroxylase to research using OMIM (Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man). They are then asked to both explain and illustrate how this mutation may cause the disease phenylketonuria (PKU).

This self-paced course was originally designed to help prepare incoming MIT students for their first Introductory Biology Course (known at MIT as 7.01). It will also be useful for anyone preparing to take an equivalent college-level introductory biology class elsewhere. It includes lecture videos, interactive exercises, problem sets, and one exam.  Lecture Topics: Molecules of Life, The Cell and How it Works, Information Transfer in Biology, Inheritance and Genetics, and Building with DNA.
Go to OCW’s Open Learning Library site for Pre-7.01: Getting up to Speed in Biology. The site is free to use, just like all OCW sites. You have the option to sign up and enroll in the course if you want to track your progress, or you can view and use all the materials without enrolling.

In the video you can find some hints to design a primers for clone your GOI in a plasmid using restriction enzyme and ligase cloning approach

In this project, you will explore a real-world problem, and then work through a series of steps to analyze that problem, research ways the problem could be solved, then propose a possible solution to that problem. Often, there are no specific right or wrong solutions, but sometimes one particular solution may be better than others. The key is making sure you fully understand the problem, have researched some possible solutions, and have proposed the solution that you can support with information / evidence.Begin by reading the problem statement in Step 1. Take the time to review all the information provided in the statement, including exploring the websites, videos and / or articles that are linked. Then work on steps 2 through 8 to complete this problem-based learning experience.