This understanding is obtained by analyzing original data, both in lectures and by independent reading of significant papers in the field. This course provides a broad overview of animal development, with emphasis on processes and underlying cellular and molecular mechanisms. Using examples from both vertebrate and invertebrate embryos, topics include fertilization, embryonic cleavage, gastrulation, early vertebrate morphogenesis, neural development, determination of fate by cytoplasmic specification and cell-cell interactions, mechanisms of gene regulation at transcriptional and posttranscriptional levels that mediate specific developmental processes, pattern formation, sex determination, and gametogenesis. The course is designed to provide training in specific methods, data acquisition and analysis, and sampling problems. The latter topic is related to the Human Genome Diversity Project.
Students also learn quantitative techniques in evolutionary genetics.
Through the use of modern phylogenetic software packages, students learn how to reconstruct evolutionary histories of organisms. Topics include models of cladogenesis, coalescence, models of DNA substitution, estimating rates of change, likelihood estimation of phylogeny, Bayesian inference of phylogeny, distance and parsimony methods, bootstrap hypothesis testing using phylogenies, testing the molecular clock, testing cospeciation, examining the fit of models of DNA substitution, and uses of Markov chain Monte Carlo for phylogeny inference. The methodologies used to construct evolutionary trees are examined. All participants are required to evaluate current literature and software devoted to phylogenetic analysis. Course centers on genetic approaches to developmental questions.