CAMB 692 Advanced Topics in Cell Biology

Morrie Birnbaum          mailto:birnbaum@mail.med.upenn.edu

Mark Lemmon mailto:mlemmon@mail.med.upenn.edu

Rick Assoian                mailto:rka@pharm.med.upenn.edu

Phong Tran                   tranp@mail.med.upenn.edu

The primary goal of this course is develop a deeper understanding of critical issues in the areas of signal transduction, cell cycle regulation and cell division.  A secondary aim is to further refine one’s abilities in the critical reading and analysis of the literature, synthesis and organization of diverse primary literature, and scientific presentation.

There will be two meetings per week.  The Monday meeting will be devoted to a presentation by one or two of the students of background information relevant to that week’s subject matter, with particular reference to the papers considered that week.  On Friday, students (usually two) will present papers (usually two) selected by the faculty and designed to stimulate discussion in a specific current area of cell biology.  The presenting students will be responsible for providing a framework for and leading a discussion, but the entire class, who will have already read the papers as well as several introductory reviews, will do but most of the analysis of the paper.  It deserves emphasis that all students are expected to be familiar with the background material and actively participate in weekly discussions, not just the students responsible for the presentation.

The presentation:

The goal of the presentation will be to go over context for the selected studies, the overall questions being addressed, the critical experiments, the conclusion reached and the issues raised.  The presentation is meant to be critical, i.e. to include an evaluation of experimental design and conclusions.  Note that the student should not present all the data in the paper (since all the students in the class will have read it) but to highlight critical data and issues.  In general, all data should be presented in the following style:

1. Define the question or problem being addressed by the experiment.  Often this is done in the previous slide as an introduction to the experiment,
2. Describe the methodology used.  This can sometimes be a simple statement (e.g. A western blot used an antibody directed against xxx) but often requires a more detailed explanation.
3. Describe the results, pointed to the relevant data.
4. State the interpretation of the experiment, both the authors’ and yours.
5. Conclude what we have learned from the experiment, including limitations in interpretation.

Grades will be based on presentations as well as classroom participation.

• Week of Jan. 8

Introduction           

• Week of Jan. 15 (No class Monday, but class meets Fri Jan 19)

Signal Transduction: Nuclear signaling by receptor tyrosine kinases

• On Friday 19th:

This House believes that "Intact ErbB receptor tyrosine kinases have direct effects in the nucleus"

Proposition: James Flowers

Opposition: Adam Siebert

Faculty: Lemmon & Birnbaum        

• Week of Jan. 22

Signal Transduction: Signaling, Energy, and Nutrients

Students: Jennine Dawicki McKenna (1/22); Lashon Ussin (1/26)

Faculty: Mitch Lazar (1/26), Birnbaum, an Lemmon           

• Week of Jan. 29

Signal Transduction: Phosphoinositide signaling & control

Students: Adam Siebert (1/29); Jessamine Winer (2/2)

Faculty: Paul Janmey (1/29), Charles Abrams (2/2), Birnbaum and Lemmon           

• Week of Feb. 5

Signal Transduction: Scaffolds in signaling pathways

Students: Charles Lemken (2/5); Ashley Mentlik (2/9)

Faculty: Gary Koretzky (2/5), Lemmon, and Birnbaum       

• Week of Feb. 12

Signal Transduction: Transforming growth factor-beta signaling

Students: Lili Guo (2/12); James Flowers (2/16)

Faculty: Xinxian Hua (2/16), Birnbaum and Lemmon          

• Week of Feb. 19

Signal Transduction: Logic of signaling pathways

Students: Jennine Dawicki McKenna (2/19); Derek Johnson (2/23), with contribution from Selman Sakar on both days

Faculty: Stas Shvartsman (2/19), Mark Goulian (2/23), Lemmon and Birnbaum      

• Week of Feb. 26

Cell Cycle Regulation: Introduction to cyclins and cyclin-dependent kinases

Students: Jessamine Winer (2/26); Lashon Ussin (3/2)        

• Week of Mar. 5

Spring Break

No classes

• Week of Mar. 12

Cell Cycle Regulation: Regulation of the cell cycle by ubiquitin-mediated proteolysis

Students: James Flowers (3/12); Monica Teta (3/16)          

• Week of Mar. 19

Cell Cycle Regulation: Signal transduction and cell cycle control

Students: Adam Siebert; Ashley Mentlik (order to be established)   

• Week of Mar. 26

Cell Cycle Regulation: Cycling without cyclins - lessons from knock-out mice

Students: Lili Guo; Derek Johnson (order to be established)            

• Week of Apr. 2

Cell Division: Microtubules/Actin

Students: Charles Lemken (4/2); Jennine Dawicki McKenna (4/6)  

• Week of Apr. 9

Cell Division: Mitosis/Cytokinesis

Students: Monita Teta (4/9); Lashon Ussin (Friday 13th)    

• Week of Apr. 16

Cell Division: Cell Polarity/Cell Shape

Students: Charles Lemken (4/16); Jessamine Winer (4/20)

• Week of Apr. 23

Epilogue