Molecular Approaches to Microbial Biodiversity (MBL Summer Courses 2000 - 2003)

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DEB-0074786Caroline S. HarwoodDr. Caroline Harwood has been awarded a grant for an intensive six-and-a-half week summer course in Microbial Diversity to be given at The Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts in the years 2000 though 2003. There is general agreement in the scientific community that the continued expansion of biotechnology into the environmental, pharmaceutical and medical arenas depends on our ability to recognize and exploit the vast biodiversity of microbes that exist on earth. The aim of the course is to train students to recognize and effectively study diverse kinds of new microorganisms. The course will be attended by graduate and postdoctoral students, as well as established investigators, who want to become competent in microbiological techniques for working with a broad range of microbes and in approaches for recognizing and understanding evolutionary relationships between microbes. The course is primarily a laboratory course that will emphasize nature as the source of microorganisms for research; thus the beginner and the advanced student have equal chances to make discoveries. Students will isolate various metabolic types of microbes and they will use molecular techniques, computer analysis and approaches of comparative genomics to mine the riches of diverse microbes. The laboratory component of the course will be complemented by lectures that provide theoretical background in metabolism, evolution and genomics. A series of mini-symposia on current topics of interest in the areas of genomics and microbial evolution will also be given.