Oklahoma City Community College
Advanced Nucleic Acids – BIOT2843
Fall 2006

Instructor:   John McMurray
Office:         Room 1P1 Main Building
Phone:         (405) 682-1611 ext. 7164
E-mail:        jmcmurray@occc.edu
Textbook:  There is no textbook for this course.

Attendance: Consistent, on-time attendance is required. Students who miss a lecture/lab period will have 30 points deducted from their grade, regardless of the reason. Students who miss more than three class meetings will receive an F for the course – no exception, no matter what the reason. Being late to lecture/lab will result in a 5 point grade deduction.

Accommodations for Students with Special Needs: Oklahoma City Community College complies with Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. Students with disabilities who require special accommodations should make their request in the following ways:
- talk with your instructor after class or during office hours about your disability or special needs related to work in class.
- complete a Request for Special Accommodations Form with a Student Support Services Advisor or a Deaf and Hearing-Impaired Specialist in Student Support Services.

Grading: Students are graded on their performance in each individual laboratory period. A score will be given to each student at the end of each lab period based on the students’ performance with regard to the following:
punctuality/timeliness  5 points
preparedness 5 points
organization 5 pts
cleanliness   5 points
cooperativity   5 points
completion of lab duties 5 points
completion of lab objectives 10 points
Thus, the total points a student can earn in each lab is 40. The number of points deducted for failing to meet minimum lab standards is entirely left to the discretion of the instructor. Additionally, students must keep a laboratory binder describing what they did in the lab at each meeting. Course handouts may be included in the binder but may not be substituted for descriptions
of what the student did. This notebook must also include all of the results from any PCR, gel extractions, spectrophotometer measurements, sequencing reactions, ect. Notebooks may be collected at any time by the instructor to insure that students are keeping an accurate record of their laboratory activities. Notebooks will be graded according to the following criteria:
                                                                                                -               completeness
                                                                                                -               organization
                                                                                                -               legibility
These notebooks will be formally graded twice during the eight-week session (100 points each time) with unannouced spot-checks all throughout the session.

1. The student can use primer design software appropriately to generate primer sequences for PCR, and be able to control and evaluate primers for optimal performance.
2. The student can use internet web resources to investigate and gather information about multiple aspects of gene structure and function.
3. The student is able to use commercial kits for functions like DNA extraction and PCR product purification, plasmid recovery.
4. The student can use multiple PCR reactions with electrophoresis to create and combine DNA pieces into a single larger DNA piece to replace your gene of interest.
5. The student can take the recombinant DNA piece and transform into bacteria, replacing the gene of interest and verify with colony PCR.
6. The student can extract RNA from bacteria, make cDNA, label with fluorescent markers, and use for hybridizing to E. coli microarray slide and scan for gene expression.
7. The student will also be practicing culture methods, solution preparation, quantifying and monitoring experiments using the spectrophotometer.
   
   Academic Dishonesty: Cheating is a serious matter and there are stiff penalities for getting caught. Examples of academic dis-honesty include but are not limited to the following:
   -  cheating, which includes possessing unauthorized sources of information during examinations, copying the work of others, permitting others to copy your work, submitting work done by others, completing assignments for others, altering work after grading and subsequently submitting it for re-grading;
   -  plagiarism, which includes taking the words or substance of another and either copying or paraphrasing the work without giving credit to the source through footnotes, quotation marks, or reference citations;
   -     providing materials to another with knowledge they will be improperly used;
   -     possessing another's work without permission;
   -     selling, purchasing, or trading materials for class assignments (includes purchasing term papers via the World Wide Web);
   -     altering the work of another; (cont.)
   -     knowingly furnishing false or incomplete academic information;
   -     altering documents that make up part of the student record;
   -     forging signatures or falsifying information on any official academic document.
   The policy in this course for any and all verified instances of cheating is an automatic course grade of "F". Don't take the chance - there is very little to gain and a great deal to lose.