BIOMI 6850

Bacterial Genetics

Course Description

Course information provided by the 2025-2026 Catalog.

Bacteria are the driving force behind all major environmental cycles on the planet, they are critical players in a broad range of agricultural and industrial applications, as well as being responsible for many of the greatest medical challenges and opportunities facing humanity. Additionally, the underpinning of all molecular biology basically comes from work in bacteria. Systems being discovered in bacteria are continuing to drive the latest technologies in gene modification and genetic engineering across the life sciences. This course will provide a fundamental understanding of the genetics of bacteria and how this information can be used to understand the uniquely important role they play in the natural environment and current and future applications.

Prerequisites BIOMG 2800.

Last 4 Terms Offered 2025FA, 2024FA

Learning Outcomes

• Examine how bacteria maintain and pass on genetic information and the unique nature of their genomes.
• Examine how bacteria evolve through mutations and the exchange of genetic information via mobile elements and direct DNA uptake.
• Assess how the repertoire encoded in bacterial genomes is efficiently regulated through gene and global regulation.
• Identify the bacterial systems used across biology for gene editing (e.g. CRISPR/Cas, gene assembly).
• Present evidence-based conclusions on a recent paper in bacterial genetics.
• Explore how bacterial genetics was used to answer many of the fundamental questions in biology.
• Propose future research directions following from a recent paper on bacterial genetics.

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