Genetics
Objectives of the course:
To provide students with knowledge and experience about inheritance of living organisms with an emphasis on general aspects of continuity of life.
Brief outline of the course:
Nature as integrated genetic laboratory. History of genetics. J. G. Mendel and birth of genetics. Mendel´s laws. Gene linkage. Epistasis. Complex traits. Gene mapping using classical and moder approaches. Genetic determination of sex. Extrachromosomal inheritance. Basis of cytogenetics, mutations and mutagenesis. Genetics of prokaryotic organisms. Genetic mechanisms at subcellular level. Structure and function of DNA and different types of RNA. Genetic code. Replication, transcription, translation. Post-transcriptional and post-translational modifications. Regulation of gene expression in prokaryotic and eukaryotic organisms. Fundamentals of human genetics. Population genetics. Human genome project. Sequenced genomes and thier use in comparative genomics.
Plant Biotechnology
Objectives of the course:
To give students theoretical and practical knowledge on plant tissue culture in vitro.
Brief outline of the course:
Genetics and physiology of plant cell and tissue culture, protoplasts, embryoids and organs cultured in vitro under sterile conditions. Use of tissue culture in research and praxis. Cryopreservation of plant cells and tissues. Immobilised plant systems. Genetic transformation of plants and expression of foreign genes.
Evolutionary biology
Objectives of the course:
To understand the fundamental ideas of the theory of evolution, the evidence supporting contemporary views on the origin and evolution of living organisms on Earth and of the mechanisms of evolution.
Brief outline of the course:
Historical overview of evolutionary theories. The origin of life. Elements of evolution: mutations, population waves, and isolation. Natural selection. Molecular evolution. Adaptations and their classification. Concept of species. Macroevolution. Evolution of functions and organs, evolution of onthogeny. Phylogeny of animals. Evolutionary progress. Anthropogenesis. Plant diversity. Primary and secondary speciation of plants. Reproduction-isolation mechanisms. Hybridisation and introgression of plants. Polyploidy. Reproductive systems in plants.
Human Genetics
Objectives of the course:
To provide students with a basics of human genetics, with the role of genetic factors in pathologic processes, with the inheritance, diagnostics and treatment of genetic disorders.
Brief outline of the course:
The genetic basics of physiological variability and pathological traits of individuals; human population genetics; the patterns of inheritance and pedigree problem solving; the basic methods used in human genetics – genealogy, linkage analysis and the gene mapping, cytogenetic analysis and karyotyping, the DNA diagnosis of pathological traits; the treatment of genetic disorders.
Model Organisms in Genetics
Objectives of the course:
To provide students with information on model systems of prokaryotic and eukaryotic organisms used in genetic research.
Brief outline of the course:
Basic properties of model organisms used in genetics. Prokaryotic model systems (Escherichia coli, Diplococcus pneumoniae, Agrobacterium tumefaciens and A. rhizogenes). Model systems of simple eukaryotic organisms (Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Neurospora crassa). Plant and animal model systems in vitro and in vivo. Caenorhabditis elegans. Arabidopsis thaliana. Mendel´s laws. Drosophila melanogaster. Morgan´s rules. Mus musculus. Human genome. Transgenic plants and animals. HeLa cells. Stem cells. Genetic importance of the study of twins. Genetic databases.
Cytogenetics and Karyology
Objectives of the course:
To provide students with knowledge and experience in genetic processes at the cell level using the newest scientific findings of cytogenetics and molecular cytology. To have students become acquainted in detail with the results coming from human genome mapping.
Brief outline of the course:
Organisation of eukaryotic genome. Nuclear skeleton. Nucleolus; nucleolar skeleton. Chromatin structure and changes of chromatin. Levels of DNA organisation in cell nucleus. Chromosomes. Polythene chromosomes. Cell cycle. Genetic regulation of a cell cycle. Genetic regulation of cell differentiation. Apoptosis. Telomeres and function of telomerase. Molecular cytology. Basic characteristics of the human genome project: what we can learn from it?
Plant Biotechnology
Objectives of the course:
To gain theoretical and practical knowledge on plant tissue culture in vitro.
Brief outline of the course:
Genetics and physiology of plant cell and tissue culture, protoplasts, embryoids and organs cultured in vitro under sterile conditions. Use of tissue culture in research and praxis. Cryopreservation of plant cells and tissues. Immobilised plant systems. Genetic transformation of plants and expression of foreign genes.
Functional Plant Genomics
Objective of the course:
Objective of the course is to provide up-to-date information on methods and resources used to analyze function of genes at the genome level. The course is primarily designed for students interested in plant functional genomics but anyone interested in the functional analysis of large genomes may attend because approaches studying genomes are essentially the same.
Brief outline of the course:
Model plant for plant functional genomics – Arabidopsis thaliana. Reverse genetics as a functional genomics tool. Transcriptomics. Proteomics. Metabolomics. Biological databases as a source to study plant genome.
Gene Manipulations in Plants
Objective of the course:
To provide students with an advanced knowledge on possibilities, conditions and mechanisms of gene manipulations in plant biology and to get an overview about advantages, risks and rules of cultivation of transgenic plants as well as distribution of products from transgenic plants.
Brief outline of the course:
History of gene manipulations in plant science. Protoplasts as an experimental system for introduction of genetic information. Methods of genetic transformation in plant biology – direct and indirect approaches. Agrobacterium spp. – genetic streucture of a plasmid, genes in T-DNA, mechanism of T-DNA transfer, regeneration of transgenic plants. Characterisation and use of transgenic cultures. Binary and co-integrative vectors. Transgenes and their physiological function in plant improvement. Risks and rules of cultivation of transgenic plants. Foods from transgenic plants in the world.
Population Genetics
Objectives of the course:
Acquire knowledges about genetic interactions in population. Describe the theoretical and historical ground of population genetics. Identify, characterize and compare fundamental mechanisms (mutation, selection, migration, genetic drift). Interactions leading to intra- and interpopulation variability in population structure.
Genetic diversity analysis
Brief outline of the course:
Gene pool of human population. Genetic variations of phenotype features. Mendel‘s vs. multilocus heredity. Panmixia and Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium. Evolutionary forces shaping diversity among individuals, assortative and disassortative mating, inbreeding, Wright effect. Distribution of gene/allele and genotype frequencies. Wahlund variation and population substructure. Genetic drift, founder effect. Selection and fitness. Migration – gene flow. Mutations. Genetic polymorphisms. Technologies in population genetics. Genographic studies. HapMan project
Bioinformatics
Objectives of the course:
This interdisciplinary course is aimed at application of mathematical methods and computer science approaches in solving some problems in Molecular Biology, as, for example analysis of nucleotide and protein sequences, genome study.
Brief outline of the course:
Introduction to the basic and advanced bioinformatic tools in the field of genetics. Work with the databases dedicated for the students specialized in biological disciplines. Basics of Linux operating system, command line approaches. Computational tools in the analysis of the PCR reaction dependent methods. Possibilities of sequencing and genotyping. Study of individual sequences of DNA, RNA and proteins. Presentation of biological data originating from the different “Omics” areas. Cloud analysis and NGS data. RNAseq data testing, asssembly, contigs mapping, analysis of different expression levels of genes.
