Courses

Survey of the major topics in basic immunology with an emphasis on the molecular basis for immune recognition and regulation. Course Director: Steven Reiner.

This course will introduce graduate students to the concepts and methodology of bioinformatics, computational biology, next-generation sequencing analysis, systems biology, advanced imaging and biostatistics. It will introduce the databases, web sites, software, hardware, algorithms and programming languages currently used to analyze and quantify biological data and explain how these tools are best used. Course Director: Oliver Jovanovic.

Course Director: Steven Reiner

Course Director: Anne Moscona

This fall semester required for all first year students course covers basic biochemical and experimental principles, such as protein and nucleic acid structure and chemistry, thermodynamics and enzyme kinetics, and bioinformatics. Also included are biochemical processes common to all cells such as genome replication and repair, regulation of gene expression, cell cycle control, and cell membrane and receptor biochemistry. Course Director: Stavros Lomvardas.

Required for all first year students in spring semester, this course is an Introduction to eukaryotic cell biology and covers such topics as membrane trafficking, the mitochondria, the nucleus, viral biology, apoptosis as well as the cytoskeleton and its role in various cellular processes, including mitosis, cell migration, cell polarity and cell adhesion. Course Directors: Gregg Gundersen and Ai Yamamoto.

This fall-semester course is required for all first-year students and covers aspects of molecular biology and genetics, from prokaryotes to mammals, including regulation of gene expression, molecular genetics of bacterial viruses, plasmids, and transposable elements, as well as modern molecular genetic approaches to complex biological phenomena. Format: four to five hours of lecture and discussion per week. Course Director: Jonathan Dworkin.

This spring semester course explores a variety of ethical and policy issues that arise during the conduct of basic and clinical scientific research. Course sessions include lectures, discussion periods, and analyses of case studies. Columbia requires that all graduate students share in the discussions of this course. You will hear from your faculty speaking honestly about problems that you may face. You will find the discussions interesting. Course Directors: Arthur Palmer and Jaime Rubin.

Methods and principles involved in studying the structure and function of proteins, nucleic acids, membranes, and their macro-molecular assemblies. Noncovalent forces and conformational analysis; ultracentrifugation, viscometry, circular dichroism, fluorescence, magnetic resonance; conformational changes in proteins and nucleic acids, topological properties of macromolecules. Course Director: Arthur Palmer.

An integrated and critical review of cancer biology, emphasizing recent research. Topics discussed include: natural history and epidemiology of cancer; morphology and behavior of cancer cells; DNA and RNA tumor viruses; oncogenes; tumor suppressor genes; signal transduction; the genetics of cancer; cancer and cellular differentiation; cancer causation: physical and chemical agents; multistage carcinogenesis; hormones, nutrients, and growth factors in cancer. Readings are largely original research papers and review articles. One 2-hour seminar per week. Course director: Richard Baer.

This spring semester course provides an introduction to the basic statistics commonly used in biomedical research laboratories. Students are provided with a statistical software package for use during the course. Exercises based on relevant experimental data sets use the software to reinforce the lecture material. Topics covered include the role of statistics in biomedical research, principles of statistical analysis, and selecting and applying the appropriate statistical tests. Course Directors: Arthur Palmer.