Research Areas - Plant & Microbial Biology
Faculty
Gladys Alexandre
Bacterial chemotaxis and motility
Barry D. Bruce
Protein import into chloroplasts; Nanotechnology of photosynthesis
Beth C. Mullin
Plant-microbe interactions; Actinomycetes as nitrogen fixing symbionts
Andreas Nebenführ
Myosin-driven organelle movement in Arabidopsis
Daniel M. Roberts
Membrane transporters and calcium signaling; nodulation
Elena Shpak
Plant development directed by cell-surface receptor kinases
Albrecht G. von Arnim
Translational regulation of gene expression; Biosensors
Courses
Students in our labs often take some of the following courses
1. Core courses, which are taken by all BCMB graduate students (as well as students from other programs):
- BCMB 511 Advanced Biochemistry: Protein structure, catalysis, binding; membranes
- BCMB 512 Advanced Molecular Biology: Gene regulation, chromatin, RNA
- BCMB 515 Experimental Techniques
2. Specialized BCMB courses. Popular offerings include:
- BCMB 513 Cell Biology: Signaling pathways, cell cycle, cytoskeleton, protein trafficking
- BCMB 522 Plant Biology I - Molecular Physiology
- BCMB 523 Plant Biology II - Developmental Biology
- BCMB 530 Experimental Design and Analysis: Scientific writing, building and testing hypotheses
- BCMB 562 and BCMB 564 Electron Microscopy
- BCMB 605-608 Journal clubs: Recent topics: Novel roles of RNA, protein turnover
- BCMB 615 Special topics: Recent topics: Analytical Techniques in Protein Biochemistry
3. Courses offered by other programs, such as Genome Science and Technology (Analytical Technologies, Genomics, Bioinformatics), Statistics, Microbiology, and many more.
4. Course credit for miscellaneous activities such as departmental seminars (BCMB 601) and colloquia (BCMB 603), 1st year lab rotations (BCMB 516) and other ‘Thesis’ (BCMB 500) and ‘Dissertation’ (BCMB 600) activities.