Biophysics 242r/2009:Schedule

Note: This syllabus will be updated over the next few weeks as guest lecturer schedules are finalized.

Date	Lecturer	Topic	Papers / Assignments
Jan. 29	Pam Silver / Jack Szostak	Course Introduction – required work; paper reading and project design and presentation Jack and Pam will present perspectives on interesting things that Nature does that can serve as basis for Synthetic Biology and examples of synthetic biology	A general overview of synthetic biology
Feb. 3 & 5	Pam Silver	Designing simple biological systems	"Synthetic biology: new engineering rules for an emerging discipline", "Designing biological systems", "Synthetic biology: promises and challenges"
Feb. 10 & 12	Tom Knight	Logic and engineering applied to biology	T.B.A.
Feb. 17	Jeremy Gunawardena	Quantitative considerations in complex system design	T.B.A.
Feb. 19	Kristala Jones Prather	Cell-based factories	T.B.A.
Feb. 24 & 26	Pam Silver	Synthetic devices - beyond transcription	T.B.A.
Mar. 3 & 5	Joseph (Jay) Vacanti	Tissue Engineering	T.B.A.
Mar. 10 & 12	George Church	Building artificial organisms, reprogramming cellular genomes, and in vitro genomes	"Synthetic biology projects in vitro," Forster and Church
Mar. 17 & 19	William Shih	DNA nanostructures	The Rothemund 2006 and Yin et al 2008 Nature manuscripts.
Mar. 24 & 26	Spring break, no class	n/a	n/a
Mar. 31 & Apr. 2	Jack Szostak	Evolution vs Design of Molecular Components (Aptamers, Ribozymes, Riboswitches)	T.B.A., 1 page blurb about project due!
Apr. 7 & 9	Jack Szostak	Evolution vs Design of Molecular Components (Folded Proteins, Enzymes)	T.B.A.
Apr. 14 & 16	Jack Szostak	Protocell Design: Self-Replicating Materials	T.B.A.
Apr. 21 & 23	Jack Szostak	DNA Computing OR re-design of phages as therapeutics for bacterial infections, or for non-medical biofilm problems	T.B.A.
Apr. 28 & 30	n/a	Project discussions	Project due!
May 6, 7, & 8	Craig Venter	Non-mandatory Prather lectures, not actually affiliated with this class, but attendance is recommended	n/a