Syllabus

Course Overview

This course focuses on the basic principles of biochemistry, genetics, molecular biology, and recombinant DNA technologies. The material presented introduces modern biology at the molecular level: the structure and function of biological macromolecules, the basics of cellular metabolism, meiosis and inheritance, DNA replication, the basics of gene expression, and general recombinant DNA techniques.

Prerequisites

There are no formal prerequisites for this course. At MIT, it is usually taken during the freshman (first) year.

Prior to taking this course, you may want to review Pre-7.01 Getting up to Speed in Biology, a self-paced course designed to help prepare students for their first college-level biology class.

Course Goals

After completing the four units of this course, you should be able to:

Identify the general structure and function of carbohydrates, phospholipds, proteins, enzymes and nucleic acids.
Outline the general processes used by the cell to generate cellular energy from sugar and to generate the energy and reducing agent needed for the Calvin cycle.
Describe how DNA was shown to be the genetic material and how DNA is copied.
Describe the structure and regulation of genes, and the structure and synthesis of proteins.
Understand the inheritance of two or more traits based upon Mendelian genetics. Apply this knowledge to drawing and decoding human pedigrees.
Understand the inheritance of traits when the genes involved are linked.
Predict the results of genetic crosses involving two or more traits when the genes involved are linked or unlinked.
Understand the general tools and reagents used in recombinant DNA technologies.
Outline a general strategy for making a recombinant DNA library, screening a recombinant DNA library, and analyzing the DNA fragment identified.
Design a general strategy for identifying a gene of interest using recombinant DNA techniques.

Format

Fundamentals of Biology was designed specifically for independent study. It draws upon material developed for the three versions of MIT’s Introductory Biology classes known as 7.012, 7.013, and 7.014. All three classes cover the same core material, which includes the fundamental principles of biochemistry, genetics, molecular biology, and cell biology. In addition, each version of the subject has its own distinctive material.

7.012, with Professors Eric Lander and Robert Weinberg, focuses on genomics, neurobiology, and cancer cell biology.
7.013, with Professors Hazel Sive and Tyler Jacks, focuses on development and cancer cell biology.
7.014, with Professors Graham Walker and Penny Chisholm, focuses on ecology and environment.

The content of this Fundamentals of Biology OCW Scholar course is organized into four major units:

Biochemistry
Molecular Biology
Genetics
Recombinant DNA

Each unit has been further divided into a sequence of sessions that cover an amount you might expect to complete in one sitting. Most sessions include:

One or more lecture video excerpts by MIT faculty explaining a key concept in biology.
Problems (with solutions) and interactive concept quizzes.
Brief help session videos by experienced MIT Teaching Assistants.
Lists of important terms and definitions.
Suggested topics and links for further study.

The following textbook was used when this course was taught on the MIT campus:

Campbell, N. A., J.B. Reece, et al. Biology. 8th ed. Pearson Benjamin Cummings, 2008. ISBN: 9780805368444.

OCW users will find equal value in most standard introductory biology textbooks. Throughout the course, we suggest topics of study that can be found in any standard textbook.

MIT expects its students to spend about 150 hours on this course. More than half of that time is spent preparing for class and doing assignments. It’s difficult to estimate how long it will take you to complete the course, but you can probably expect to spend an hour or more working through each individual session.

Meet the Team

This OCW Scholar course was developed by the following MIT Faculty and Teaching Staff:

Prof. Eric Lander
Prof. Robert Weinberg
Prof. Tyler Jacks
Prof. Hazel Sive
Prof. Graham Walker
Prof. Penny Chisholm
Dr. Michelle Mischke

To learn more about the Faculty and Teaching Staff, visit the Meet the Instructors page.

The Help Session Videos were developed by the following MIT Teaching Assistants:

Joseph Robert Dorkin
Sera Thornton
Genevieve Michelle Gould
Nicole De Nisco

To learn more about the Teaching Assistants, visit the Meet the TAs page.

« Previous | Next »

Eric Lander

Eric Lander is a Professor of Biology at MIT and Professor of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School. He is the President and Founding Director of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and Director of its Genome Biology Program. As one of the principal leaders of the Human Genome Project, Lander and colleagues are using these findings to explore the molecular mechanisms underlying the basis of human disease.

Robert A. Weinberg

Bob Weinberg is a Professor of Biology at MIT and a pioneer in cancer research. He is a founding member of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research. The Weinberg Lab is widely known for its discoveries of the first human oncogene — a gene that causes normal cells to form tumors — and the first tumor suppressor gene.

Tyler Jacks

Tyler Jacks is a Professor of Biology at MIT and Director of the The David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT. He is also an HHMI Investigator at Howard Hughes Medical Institute. The Jacks Lab research interests include the genetic events that contribute to the development of cancer and the effects of mutations on normal embryonic development.

Hazel Sive

Hazel Sive is Associate Dean of the School of Science at MIT as well as a Professor of Biology and member of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research. The Sive Lab uses zebrafish and frog embryos to understand the evolution and molecular structure of the vertebrate nervous system.

Sallie W. (Penny) Chisholm

Penny Chisholm is a Professor of Biology and also a Professor in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at MIT. The Chisholm Lab research interests include ecological genomics with particular focus on ecology, evolution, and comparative genomics of marine cyanobacteria and the viruses that infect them.

Graham Walker

Graham Walker is a Professor of Biology at MIT and an HHMI Professor at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. The Walker Lab focuses on the regulation and mechanism of action of proteins involved in DNA repair and mutagenesis and in other cellular responses to DNA damage.

Michelle Mischke

Dr. Michelle Mischke is Technical Instructor in the Department of Biology at MIT. She has been an instructor for all three versions of the Introductory Biology courses at MIT. Dr. Mischke worked closely with MIT OpenCourseWare on developing this OCW Scholar website.

« Previous | Next »

Sera Thornton
Hi, I’m Sera, and I’m a graduate student in the Biology department here at MIT. I was a Biology Teaching Assistant (TA) in the Spring of 2011. I think the best part about the introductory biology course at MIT and on OCW is the variety of professors who teach the course - they are all very enthusiastic about sharing their love of biology’s basic principles, and they each bring a slightly different perspective to the topics. I hope to lend more clarity to important topics with my video help sessions. Sometimes in class, discussion of a concept can be spread out over several lectures; it’s often helpful to my understanding to review that concept in a more condensed format. I hope you find it helpful too!

Sera Thornton did her bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Penn State University. She is now pursuing her Ph.D. in the Boyer Lab at MIT, where her research focuses on epigenetic gene regulation and how it contributes to the ability of Embryonic Stem Cells to differentiate into all of the different cell types in an adult organism. She is also passionate about education of both students and the public, and about the use of graphics in making information more understandable. The MIT Biology department awarded her the Theresa Keng graduate teaching award for her efforts in the undergraduate Genetics course, in Spring 2009.

Genevieve Gould
Hello, my name is Genny and I was a teaching assistant for the 7.012 Introductory Biology course — which focuses on genetic approaches — in the Fall of 2010. This class is great because it covers a breadth of material ranging from basic molecular interactions to genetic patterns of disease inheritance. With the skills taught in this introductory Biology course, you will learn some of the basics you need to start working on a research project in a lab. Throughout the course you will see how the different topics build on each other and understand how the topics are quite practical and even give you a better understanding of news articles about biology today.

Genevieve Gould grew up in Pacific Palisades, California. Ever since she was young she was interested in math, and in high school she discovered she was also very interested in biology. To further explore her interest in biology, Genevieve performed research at UC Davis during the summer of 2004 studying disease resistance in rice plants in the lab of Dr. Pamela Rondald. Genevieve went on to obtain her B.A. in Molecular and Cell Biology, with an emphasis in Genetics, Genomics, and Development from the University of California, Berkeley in 2009. She graduated with honors for the computational research she performed in the lab of Dr. Michael Eisen studying nucleosome repelling sequences. Today Genevieve is a graduate student in the lab of Dr. Christopher Burge in the Department of Biology at MIT where she is studying the role of the branch point sequence in regulation of splicing. In her free time, Genevieve enjoys sailing, playing soccer, and ice skating.

Nicole De Nisco
Hi! My name is Nicole and I am a graduate student in the Biology department. I was a Teaching Assistant for the 7.014 Introductory Biology course — which focuses on ecology and environment— during my second year of graduate school and before that I served as a tutor for all three versions of MIT’s Introductory Biology courses. The class is so fast paced for beginners that I find it important to really slow it down in recitation and get to the “how” and “why” of things. Like many MIT courses, this course is geared towards problem-solving, so a clear understanding of the how and why of biological processes is crucial.

Nicole De Nisco grew up in Los Angeles, California and is the first in her family to pursue a Ph.D. in science. Nicole first attended MIT as an undergraduate and graduated with a B.S. in Biology and a minor in Biomedical engineering. She continued on as a graduate student at MIT and is currently working towards her Ph.D. in Biology in the Walker Lab. Her graduate research explores the symbiosis between nitrogen-fixing bacteria and their plant hosts. In addition, Nicole is a Graduate Resident Tutor in the undergraduate dorm, Next House, and a teaching fellow at the Harvard Extension School. When not doing research, mentoring or teaching, she enjoys cooking, traveling and scuba diving.

Robert Dorkin
Hi, my name is Robert and I’m a graduate student in the Biology Department at MIT. I was a teaching assistant for the 7.012 Intoductory Biology course, which does an excellent job at introducing biology to new students. The professors successfully manage to cover the essential core information about biology, while still managing to incorporate lectures about some of the new and exciting research currently going on. The course lectures also provide plenty of information about experimental research, covering how key historical experiments were covered, as well as discussing what current methods are used in research today.

Robert Dorkin is a Massachusetts native, having grown up in Newton, MA. He went to Swarthmore College for his undergraduate degree in Biochemistry. After graduating in 2006 he spent three years working at Anlylam Pharmaceuticals, an RNAi based biotech in Kendall square, before starting his biology PhD in 2009. Currently Robert is a graduate student in Dr. Daniel Anderson’s lab in the Koch Institute where he is continuing his research on liposomal based siRNA delivery to liver cells. Robert enjoys napping and world domination.

« Previous | Next »

Browse Course Material

Course Info

Instructors

Departments

As Taught In

Level

Topics

Learning Resource Types

Fundamentals of Biology

Syllabus

Course Overview

Prerequisites

Course Goals

Format

Meet the Team

Eric Lander

Robert A. Weinberg

Tyler Jacks

Hazel Sive

Sallie W. (Penny) Chisholm

Graham Walker

Michelle Mischke

Course Info

Instructors

Departments

As Taught In

Level

Topics

Learning Resource Types