Corso di Laurea in Biotecnologie

Biochemistry and Cellular Technology Module:

The purpose of the biochemical methods is to give students the theoretical and practical knowledge of the most important methods of biological laboratory: cell culture, cell viabilty and proliferation assay, extraction and purification of nucleci acids and proteins, functional and biochemical characterization of proteins.

Molecular Biology Module:

The purpose of the Molecular Biology Module is to give students the theoretical and practical knowledge of the most important methods in DNA/RNA sequencing and bioinformatics data analysis

Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Module:

The student should be able to navigate through procedures (and be aware of the limitations of them)

Writed text
Open and closed questions 

Practical laboratory for the biochemistry method: 16 hours

Practical laboratory for the Molecular Biology module: 16 hours

Biochemistry and Cellular Technology Module

The following techniques will be treated in the module:

• Sterile cell culture technique, propagation of 2D cell culture
• 3D cell cultures
• Assays of cell viability and proliferation.
• Isolation and purification of biological moleucles from cells and tissues
• Electrophoresis techniques for purity check. PAGE, IEF and 2D electrophoresis for proteomics.
• Protein blotting and decoration 
• Immunofluorescence and confocal microscopy
• Lab practicals: Recombinant protein expression systems. purification of a GST-tag fusion protein, enzyme activity assay by spectrophotometric methods. SDS-PAGE, western blotting, protein quantitation and discussion on characterisation techniques by spectrophotometric advanced methods.

Molecular Biology Module

The Molecular Biology Module will focus on second and third generation DNA sequencing technologies.

The module focuses on experimental and computational aspects of DNA/RNA sequencing.

Introduction to sequencing technologies:

• Illumina (HISeq, MiSeq), Roche (454), Life Technologies (Ion Torrent).

Sample preparation:

• miRNA-seq
• mRNA seq
• whole transcriptome sequencing
• directional sequencing
• enrichment protocols
• DNA exome
• DNA whole genome

Bioinformatics analysis approaches

• Mapping
• Filtering
• Differential expression
• SNP calls

Examples of the above mentioned technologies and analytical methods

Biochemistry method: theoretical lessons 8 hours. Protein purification laboratory 16 hours.

Molecular Biology Module: theoretical lessons 8 hours, laboratory and data analysis 16 hours

Biochemistry

Rob Reed, David Holmes, Jonathan Weyers, Allan Jones Metodologie di base per le scienze biomolecolari, Zanichelli (2002).

oppure

A.J. Ninfa, D.P. Ballou. Metodologie di base per la biochimica e la biotecnologia. Zanichelli (2000).

oppure

IC Wilson, J. Walker. Metodologia biochimica: le tecniche biochimiche in laboratorio. Ed. Raffaello Cortina (1995).

Molecular Biology

Material provided during lessons.