Molecular
Medicine, Spring
(Biology 467, Montana State University)
The course materials and schedule are
here.
This is a course in which we read papers, and write about
papers, that go from disease to molecules. Over the course
of the semester, we will touch on all of the modern
approaches towards understanding the molecular mechanisms
of human disease.
This course is
for you. It's for you to see new ways of looking at
disease, medicine, and molecules. How can we chart your
progress, look at your thinking, and determine whether you
are getting the most out of this course? It's easy really.
You write it down.
For each of the weeks, you'll write a one page paper (2
pages double spaced) paper on the topic of the week. This
should be original thinking: what you don't like about the
papers, what you do, what you think ought to be done next.
Better yet, some analysis you've done on your own and an
idea for an entirely new approach. Your paper can include
pictures, graphs, whatever helps you communicate. Do not
simply give me the cliff notes to the papers, I've read
them too, stretch, imagine, think, try for a synthetic view
of the problem and potential solutions.
Everyone has a bad week or two, travel for interviews, a
cold, or just the desire to stay home. Everyone gets three
weeks of their choice where they don't hand in a paper.
I read the papers and hand them back on monday of the next
week. You are free to revise your paper and resubmit it:
the process of rewriting papers is a critical learning
experience and something that everyone does. No scientist
gets the words right the first time, the process of writing
about science always involves a first try, a revision, a
second try and so forth. At the end of the semester, on the
last day, you hand in the revised versions of your papers
for a final grade. I will be grading the papers both in
terms of what you have done as well as how far you have
come.
This course is for you, and you will get out of it what you
put into it.
Your final papers will be returned to you after grading. If
this is your last semester, and you are leaving early,
leave me your mailing address so I can return your papers
to you. I sincerely hope that will keep these papers, and,
in the years to come, look back at them with a sense of
pride and achievement.