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The
Physiology Course has a rich history, dating back to 1892, of training
the leaders in biology and generating Nobel Prize experiments. However,
this is not your grandfather’s Physiology Course! This intensive
laboratory course has been revamped to meet the new challenges in
biology by providing a unique interdisciplinary training environment at
the interface between cellular and computational biology. The
Physiology Course will bring together biological and
physical/computational scientists, both in the faculty and the student
body, to work together on cutting-edge problems in cell physiology.
Students will learn from leaders in the field of cellular physiology,
microscopy, and computational analysis. Students with backgrounds in
both the biological and physical/computational sciences are encouraged
to apply.
The course design will promote learning by practice, with a particular
emphasis on stimulating experimental creativity and interdisciplinary
approaches. Biology students will leave the course able to understand
and author computer simulations, and physical science students will
leave understanding the language of biology, and with experience
working on cutting edge biological problems. Students will participate
in three research threads (cell division, cell migration, and
signaling) that will run through the whole course. Each thread will
intensively use microscopy, biochemistry, and computational analysis to
address research problems in a highly collaborative setting.
State-of-the-art microscopes, as well as other advanced equipment, will
be available. It is anticipated that these threads will lead to
research discoveries, as well as providing learning opportunities. Post
course research opportunities exist for selected students.
To inspire students, and provide them with a sense of the history and
future of cell physiology, a visiting scholar program has been
established. This program brings four eminent scientists to the MBL for
a week. They deliver one or more lectures to the entire community, and
participate in both the intellectual and experimental aspects of the
course.
This course is supported with funds provided by
National Institute of
General Medical Sciences NIH
Burroughs Wellcome Fund
Howard Hughes Medical
Institute
The Rockefeller
University Press / Journal of Cell Biology
Center for
Modular Biology, Harvard University
2012 Faculty
Michael Davidson, Florida State University
Robert Fischer, NHLBI / National Institutes of Health
Daniel Fletcher, University of California, Berkeley
Melissa Gardner, Max Planck Institute, Dresden
Joe Howard, Max Planck Institute, Dresden
KC Huang, Stanford University
Khuloud Jaqaman, Harvard Medical School
Jennifer Lippincott-Schwartz, NICHD, National Institutes of Health
Christoph Schmidt, Georg-August-Universität, Göttingen
Wallace Marshall, University of California, San Francisco
James Nelson, Stanford University
David Odde, University of Minnesota
Rob Phillips, California Institute of Technology
Antonina Roll-Mecak, NINDS, National Institutes of Health
Steve Ross, Nikon Instruments
Satyajit Mayor, NCBS, Bangalore
Kurt Thorn, University of California, San Francisco
2012 Scholars
Margaret Gardel, University of Chicago
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