Physikalisch-chemische Grundlagen genetischer Informationsverarbeitung

What it is about

You engage with the physico-chemical foundations of storage, transmission and maintenance of genetic information. In the module you will learn energetic, thermodynamic and kinetic aspects of DNA/RNA as well as the mechanisms that influence topology and torsional stress of DNA. In the end you will be able to transfer these fundamentals to biological processes such as replication, repair and regulation and contextualize experimental findings.

What you will be able to do

• Assess the relevance of physico-chemical foundations for genetic information
• Quantitatively describe problems of circular DNA
• Understand and interpret current literature and single-molecule studies

What the module consists of

• LectureConveying the physico-chemical foundations (nucleotides, torsional rigidity, mechanisms of topoisomerases, etc.)
• TutorialApplication and practice of lecture contents using concrete, cell-relevant examples and literature

Teaching method

• Lecture with scriptExplanation of the theoretical foundations
• Exercises and crash course in cloningDeepening through practically oriented examples and understanding of primary literature
• Literature study possibly with student presentationsEngagement with current research, especially single-molecule techniques