Instructors: Andrew Lassar (course director), John G. Flanagan, Guillermo Garcia-Cardena, Vandana Gupta, Karl Koehler, Jordan Kreidberg, Sean Megason, Olivier Pourquié, Marcos Simoes-Costa
CB/DRB207 is evenly divided between lectures and conference sessions which cover the principals that guide vertebrate development and stem cell maintenance in various renewing tissues; in addition, we discuss how these principals can be leveraged to generate cells/tissues for regenerative biology or disease modeling in vitro. Specific topics include a molecular dissection of the signaling pathways, gene regulatory networks, and epigenetic mechanisms that control primary axis formation and regional specification, establishment of cell fate, homeotic genes and patterning, cell migration and cell-cell signalling, formation of the nervous system, craniofacial development, axonal connections, muscle formation and regeneration, morphogenesis of branched tubular systems, vasculogenesis, biomechanical regulation of developmental processes, limb development and regeneration, stem cell maintenance in various renewing tissues, germ cells and pluripotency. We will discuss in depth how the same molecular tool kit employed during development also maintains stem cells in the adult; and can be redeployed to generate cells/tissues for regenerative biology or disease modeling in vitro.
Students employ the knowledge gained by lectures and conference sessions to identify interesting new research goals in either vertebrate development, stem cell, or regenerative biology and present a research proposal to achieve these goals. Thus, a goal of this course is for students to learn how to synthesize the literature to come up with their own novel research ideas, and develop a strategy to investigate their hypotheses.
Structure of the course: lectures alternating with conference sessions, in which original literature will be discussed in depth. There is no exam. Each student will present one research proposal for group discussion.
Student proposal: click here for instructions.
Prerequisite: Introductory graduate level courses in both Cell and Molecular Biology
Half course (spring term). ...
Lectures and conferences will take place in WAB563
Student proposals will take place via Zoom
Class meets Mondays and Wednesdays from 2pm-4pm
Course Head: Andrew B. Lassar, andrew_lassar@hms.harvard.edu