Lecturer:  Andrei Pisliakov

Institution: Dundee

Hours Equivalent Credit: 22

This is an undergraduate course run by the University of Dundee.

Course Summary

An overview of fundamental areas of biology for students with little biology background, emphasizing evolution, connections between length and time scales in biology, and the potential role of physics to inform biology at all of these different scales. Introduction: what is life? Darwin’s theory of evolution, Mendelian genetics, tree of life, basics of prokaryotic cells, basics of eukaryotic cells. Biochemistry and molecular biology: structure and functions of proteins, structure of DNA, DNA replication, transcription, translation, protein folding. Cell biology: membrane structure, membrane transport, metabolism and mitochondria, cytoskeleton, cell cycle. Multicellular organisms: germ cells, fertilisation, development. Populations: introduction to ecology, population genetics and evolution.