Laboratory Rotation I
Code
1071001
Credits
10
Teacher in charge
Duarte Barral
Teaching language
Portuguese/English
Objectives
This curricular unit aims to prepare the students for the laboratory work of their PhD thesis in research areas in aging and chronic diseases. Moreover, it aims to give students training in techniques and methods with which they are not familiar yet. It is expected that the students acquire laboratory skills, such as planning an experiment, performing it and analyzing the results. It is also expected that the students learn how to interpret the results and find the reasons behind failures and problems, as well as strategies to overcome these. At the end, the students should have acquired knowledge about specific techniques and most of all the general knowledge of what it means starting from a scientific question, finding strategies to answer it and interpret the meaning of the experimental data. Another important goal is to endow the students with oral and written communication skills and the discussion of the work with an audience.
Prerequisites
Subject matter
- Molecular mechanisms of disease
- Host-pathogen interaction
- Tissue morphogenesis and repair
- Cilia regulation and disease
- Oncobiology
- Metabolic disorders
- Neuronal trafficking in aging
- Cell death and disease
- Immune response and vascular diseases
- Respiratory diseases
- Rheumatological diseases.
Bibliography
Molecular cloning : a laboratory manual / Joseph Sambrook, David W. Russell, Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y. : Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.
Current protocols in Cell Biology, Cell Culture, Imaging and Microscopy, Molecular Biology and Supporting LabTechniques, John Wiley & Sons
International journals of reference such as Nature, Science, Cell, PNAS
Teaching method
The teaching of this UC is essentially practical. All the techniques will be first demonstrated and the student will afterwards apply them under proper supervision. Daily, the supervisor will discuss the experimental plan and the student's questions answered. The student is expected to understand why the experimental strategy is the most adequate to answer the initial question. The detailed protocol will also be reviewed with the student. When the experiment ends, or at least weekly, the student and the supervisor will discuss the results obtained and possible interpretations, deciding together what is the most logical next step.
Evaluation method
The evaluation will be based on a written report that should be handed in a pre-established date, the oral presentation of this report and the evaluation of the supervisor. Each one of these will weight 1/3 of the final score.
Courses
