MCB faculty Amanda Whipple will be teaching a new course titled “MCB197 Gene Regulation: A Bench-to-Bedside Journey” this spring. The course is aimed at students who have completed Life Sciences 1a and 1b and who are interested in delving into gene expression and ways it can be leveraged to treat genetic diseases.
Amanda Whipple
“The motivation for developing this new course stems from wanting to share my scientific expertise and personal experience with students,” Whipple says. “Over multiple stages of my career in science, I’ve studied how the cell decides if a particular gene should be expressed, how mutations in the genome alter different aspects of gene expression regulation, and approaches that can be used to correct gene expression in disease.”
She adds, “It can feel to many students and researchers like experiments in an academic laboratory setting are far removed from clinical applications, but I’ve experienced firsthand the translation of basic discoveries in the lab to promising therapeutic strategies for disease. I’d like to take students on this journey. In this course, students will take the principles they learn about how gene expression is controlled in cells (covered in classroom-based “bench sessions”) and apply it to design rationale therapeutic strategies for genetic diseases (in “bedside sessions”) using approaches like CRISPR and antisense oligonucleotides.”
The course will include journal club sessions, interactive discussions, problem sets that teach students to analyze patterns of gene expression, and a capstone project that asks students to outline a potential treatment for a genetic disease.
“If the topic appeals to you, enroll!” Whipple says. “Because this is a new course you won’t have the luxury of reading course evaluations from previous students, but rest assured I’ll apply the same dedication and enthusiasm to teaching as I have in my previous courses. I’m striving to teach a class I wish I could have taken as a student; don’t let this opportunity pass.”
Registration for spring 2024 courses opens November 1st. For more information on MCB197, check out its syllabus here.
