Biology: Genetics & Medicine

Summer Residential Program:
Biology: Genetics & Medicine

Course Length: One Week
Dates: Session I: July 5 - July 11 | Session II: July 12 -July 18

Program Cost: $3,350

Associated Majors: B.S. in Biology; B.S. in Chemical Biology; B.E. in Chemical Engineering

For millions of years, nature has shaped life on our planet by generating incredibly diverse genetic codes and specific information encoded in each species’ genomes. CRISPR/Cas9 - short for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats and CRISPR-associated protein 9 - is the latest emerging revolutionizing gene-editing technology. It also has the potential to transform medicine, allowing it to correct genetically inherited defects that result in diseases such as sickle cell, hemophilia, and muscular dystrophy and develop more effective cancer treatments. In this program, students will learn how CRISPR works and use it for editing a gene in E. coli bacteria. Discussions will center on CRISPR-based applications and the ethics of using this dynamic tool. Modules may include virtual reality for gene editing, bioinformatics to design target sequences and the modeling of the CRISPR system.