Prokaryote Molecular Biology and Synthetic Biology

The course is offered every alternate year, next time spring 2028. The course may cover the following topics within basic prokaryote molecular biology and physiology and synthetic biology, this will depend on the need of the students

• Gene expression and regulation
• Growth and Bioenergetics
• Coordination and regulation of microbial metabolism
• Cell differentiation
• Cell communication and interactions
• Secondary metabolism
• Genetic circuits
• Design, construction and expression of synthetic pathways
• Genetic engineering techniques and tool boxes
• Synthetic genomes and gene editing
• Omics technologies (Genome and transcriptomics; Proteomics; Metabolomics, Fluxomics and lipid)

The objective of the course is to provide an understanding of the physiology of the microbial cell and how it can be manipulated. Topics that are important for synthetic biology are emphasized. The second part focuses on the approaches and tools directly utilized in synthetic biology. After the course, the student will have acquired fundamental knowledge of procaryote molecular biology and physiology at an advanced level, and be able to analyze given problems and suggest how they may be solved. For the topics on genetic circuits and on -omics technologies, the aim is to provide the students with the understanding of what these approaches may contribute to a project.

Topics in this course will be presented using new literature, lectures and discussions. The students will further be given an exercise to present as poster or orally. The course will be given in English and the exam will be given in English only. The lectures will be concentrated on 3 + 3 days (a total of 36 hours). In addition the students must expect 144 hours self study and 16 hours working on the presentation.

If too few students sign up, the course will be organized as a study group.