Texts:

Alberts et al., Molecular Biology of the Cell, 4th Edition, 2002
Lodish et al., Molecular Cell Biology, 5th Edition, 2003

Readings (see syllabus) are assigned BEFORE a particular class.
Please read them BEFORE the relevant lecture.

OTHER READING:

For Discussion sessions, generally 2-3 articles per session are assigned. The papers are chosen to illustrate major principles and methods. These articles should be read carefully as they will be discussed in detail by the entire class (a la 7.50 style). Papers are available in PDF format on the syllabus.

Note: Everyone should come to come to class fully prepared to discuss each of the assigned papers.

FINAL EXAM

At the end of the term, during the final exam period, there will be an oral exam on the content of the course. Students will choose two abstracts from a set of four. For each abstract, we will ask you to discuss the science underlying the work in the abstracts (context of the work, nature of the experiments, implications of the results) and suggest one or two follow-up experiments. This format will reflect the nature of the round-table discussions during the term.

GRADES

Grades will be based on:
    general participation in the discussions (1/3),
    performance in leading discussion of an assigned paper (1/3), and
    performance during the final exam (1/3).

USEFUL SOURCES OF REVIEW ARTICLES

The links below are primarily to MIT Libraries subscriptions. If you have difficulty opening them, try accessing from a computer on campus.

Current Opinions in Cell Biology - and others in the Current Opinions series
Annual Review of Cell and Developmental Biology
Annual Review of Biochemistry
Trends in Cell Biology
Trends in Biochemistry
Nature Cell Biology
Nature Reviews in Molecular Cell Biology