Gene Technology

Full course description

In this course, you integrate the knowledge acquired in the courses Biotechnology, Genetics Skills and Genetics and Cell Biology, and learn how genetic modification of living organisms can be achieved in practice. This course introduces you to the most advanced approaches to alter the genetic makeup of an organism, including gene insertion, activation, repression and modification. You learn the principles of modern recombinant DNA technologies to generate expression vectors and the most efficient techniques to transform plants and microbes. You are be able to illustrate the two main cellular DNA repair pathways – homologous recombination and non-homologous end joining – which form the basis for understanding the application and potential of genome editing technologies such as the CRISPR/Cas 9 system. You are also able to define genetically modified organisms. You apply your knowledge to a case for which you need to review existing gene technologies and select the one most suited for the case. This has to be argued based on a solid line of reasoning using the set criteria.