Week 1 Core Themes and Molecular Biological Techniques
This week is intended to familiarise the students with the ideas and techniques that the whole summer school with employ. This week contains the majority of the lecture-based teaching but will finish with some extremely interesting and rewarding practical classes.
Ice Breaker Party
Introduction to Commercial Biotechnology
-Microbial Diversity.
-Crop Protection and Agricultural Biotechnology.
-The future of GM crops (pharming, biofuels, biofactories)
Bioinformatics
-Database Searching: Information Acquisition
-Sequence Analysis: genome annotation
-Sequence Alignment: multiple sequence alignment and phylogenetics
-Identification of cloned sequences via homology
-Motif Recognition
-Whole Genome Comparisons
Natural Product Discovery
-Actinomycetes and natural products
-Novel genes and strategies for GM crops
Application of the -omics technologies to Commercial Biotechnology
-Introduction to post-genomic technologies
-Proteomics, protein preparation, 1st and 2nd dimension separation, data analysis
-Transcriptomics. Microarray and data analysis and interpretation
Sports night
Trip to Edinburgh at the weekend
Weeks 2 and 3 From Discovery to Product
Week 2 Plant Biotechnology
These two weeks of the summer school are designed to use practical based teaching to show how the ideas introduced in Week 1 can be applied to Commercial Biotechnology
-PCR, cloning, expression vectors for microbial expression of genes of interest, proof of concept
-Plant transformation and Tissue culture.
-Screening transformants.
-Bioassay of transformants Week 3 Microbial Biotechnology
-Selective isolation
-screening for antibiotic sensitivity and production
-16S PCR, cloning, sequencing
Hadrian's Wall trip - on the Wednesday
Sports night
Week 3 From the Laboratory to the World
The final phase of the Summer School will allow students to develop an understanding of technology transfer from both University and commercial perspectives. To introduce concepts and methods employed in the creation and management of high technology business ventures.
Product Commercialisation
-Intellectual property
-Pre-market concerns for GM
-Post-market concerns for GM Market Regulation
Field Trip
Site visit to Helena, a local biotech company (http://www.helena-biosciences.com).
Case studies
Using research strands based on current high impact papers thus enlightening the students about the work themes currently running at Newcastle University
-Abyssomicin C: is a recently discovered antimicrobial natural product that has a completely novel chemical structure, and is the first natural product inhibitor of the essential shikimate pathway present in bacteria and plants
.
-Enhancing Resistance to Insect Pests. Exploiting natural resistance.
.Ferry N, Edwards MG, Gatehouse JA, Gatehouse AMR. Plant-insect interactions: molecular approaches to insect resistace CURRENT OPINION IN BIOTECHNOLOGY 15 (2):,155-161 APR 2004
-Fusion proteins for novel pest control.
.Fitches E, Edwards MG, Mee C, Grishin E, Gatehouse AMR, Edwards JP, Gatehouse JA. Fusion.proteinss containing insect- specific toxins as pest control agents: snowdrop lectin delivers fused .insecticidal spider venom toxin to insect haemolymph following oral ingestion. JOURNAL OF INSECT PHYSIOLOGY 50 (1): 61-71 JAN 2004
