Bachelors in Biology

1st year, 2nd semester

Diversité du vivant (Sanders, van der Meer)

First exploration of the microbial world. Concept of the Tree of Life based on molecular markers and their discovery. Biology of fungi and their importance.

2nd year, 3d and 4th semester

Microbiology of Prokaryotes (van der Meer)

Introduction to prokaryote biology. Structure and function of prokaryotic cells. Microscopy principles. First general aspects of microbial metabolism, growth, cultivation and taxonomy. Global nutrient cycles maintained by microbial activities. Bacteriophages. Concepts of sterilisation and antimicrobial agents.

Microbiology of Prokaryotes (Keel, Entenza) Practical course.

Practise and acquisition of classical techniques in microbiology. Illustrations of concepts and methods from the first general course.

Bacterial genetics (Collier)

First wonders of bacterial genetics. Prokaryotic genomes, chromosome and plasmid replication, restriction modification systems, DNA recombination in bacteria, horizontal gene transfer in bacteria, specific aspects of bacterial transcription, translation and gene regulation.

3d year, 5th semester

Molecular biology (Reimmann, van der Meer) Practical course.

Practise and acquisition of current molecular biology techniques and methods, on a concise example of unraveling the metabolic pathway of 2-hydroxybiphenyl and its regulation in the bacterium Pseudomonas azelaica.

Virology (Fall 2009) (Kunz)

General introduction to virology.

3d year, 6th semester

Bloc Signalling: (responsible: Lapouge)

A concise block of coursework and advanced practical experiments in microbiology. Major topics include: Interactions plants-insects 12(T. Farmer, P. Reymond), Viruses - host (S. Kunz, A. Telenti, W. Herr), Bacterial cell-cell signalling (C. Reimmann, P. Moreillon, C. Keel), Small RNAs (K. Lapouge), Flow cytometry (P. Majcherczyk), Yeast-host interactions (D. Sanglard), Fungi-plant interactions (U. Paszkowski), Endosymbionts (G. Greub), Bacterial cell cycle regulation (J. Collier), Parasites (N. Fasel)

in: Bloc Ecologie et Comportement (responsable: Alexandre Roulin)

Microbial Ecology and Environmental Microbiology (van der Meer)