你将学到什么
Basic principles of evolution
Recognition of the diversity of life
Methods to classify organisms
Basic knowledge of extremophiles
Principles that govern protein stability
课程概况
Life on our planet is diverse. While we can easily recognize this in our everyday surroundings, an even more diverse world of life can be seen when we look under a microscope. This is the world of microorganisms. Microorganisms are everywhere, and although some are notorious for their roles in human disease, many play important roles in sustaining our global environment. Among the wide variety of microorganisms, here we will explore those that thrive in the most extreme environments, the extremophiles.
In this course, we will discover how diverse life is on our planet and consider the basic principles that govern evolution. We will also learn how we can classify organisms. Following this, we will have a look at several examples of extreme environments, and introduce the microorganisms that thrive under these harsh conditions. We will lay emphasis on the thermophiles, extremophiles that grow at high temperatures and will study how proteins from thermophiles can maintain their structure and function at high temperatures.
课程大纲
Week 1: Evolution and the Diversity of Life
Evolution is a result of diversification and selection
How can we classify life?
Phylogenetic analysis
The three domains of life
Week 2: Life in Boiling Water
Extreme environments
Hyperthermophiles
More hyperthermophiles
Thermostable proteins from hyperthermophiles
Week 3: Diversity of Extremophiles
Preparing for a hot reaction
Watching a hot reaction
Extremophiles
More extremophiles
Week 4: Genome Sequences
What they tell us
How can we use them?
Using the genome to find new metabolic pathways | Part 1 and Part 2
Diversity of the microbial world
预备知识
Basic knowledge of biology equivalent to the junior high school level
