Biotechnology
Full course description
This course aims at introducing you to the fields of Biology and Biotechnology. Starting from the definition of life, you will understand its basic characteristics, such as metabolism, growth, reproduction, response to stimuli and communication. You will study the cell as the basic unit of life, will learn the major differences between eukaryotes and prokaryotes, and will understand the classification of organisms to appreciate the principles of the diversity of species and evolution. You will become familiar with population dynamics and understand how it is affected by environmental changes. In addition, a basic understanding of how the genetic information of an organism relates to its phenotype will be gained, laying the basis to comprehend the core concept of biotechnology: the technological application of biological systems. You will become familiar with the major fields of biotechnology and will learn how biotechnological applications have already affected our daily lives.
Course objectives
At the end of this course, you are able to:
- Describe the building blocks of life and their structure-function relationship
- Illustrate how life is organized into hierarchical levels
- Explain the basic concepts of growth, development and reproduction and compare these between unicellular and multicellular organisms
- Describe the mechanisms and strategies that plant organism use to communicate with each other and to respond to the environment
- Explain the most important basic concepts in the fields of ecology and evolution
- Give examples of tools and approaches used in biotechnology
- Explain the relationship between genotype, phenotype and environment
- Provide examples of how biotechnology can contribute to the circular economy
- Present about a scientific topic to an audience of scientific peers.
Recommended reading
Mandatory
Campbell, N. A., Urry, L. A., Cain, M. L., Wasserman, S. A., Minorsky, P. V., & Reece, J. B. (2018). Biology: A global approach (11th ed.). Pearson.
Recommended
Recommended literature and other sources would be at the end of each task. Feel free to approach the coordinator to suggest additional books/articles if you are interested in specific topics and/or desire to have more in depth information.