Education
The Center has developed a teaching and training program that responds to current and future needs of the field. This involves continued creation of course materials for the current curriculum as well as specialized courses, training sessions and hands-on workshops. Our teaching covers a broad spectrum of levels and interests. These include undergraduate courses, graduate and postdoctoral training (also available to advanced undergraduates), minority programs within Yale, courses and site visits for high school students and a range of outreach programs and events for the larger New Haven community.
High School:
Students from New Haven high schools are scheduled for four visits to the Yale Center for Genomics and Proteomics and the Center for Excellence in Genome Sciences either in late Fall and early Spring. They are given a description of the basics of molecular biology, the Human Genome Project, and the functional genomics approaches related to the HGP. The teachers for these high schools have already made visits to the facility and are themselves getting instruction in genomics and have received reviews on microarraying and other methods of genomics and proteomics.
Undergraduate
Courses:
We currently offer the following advanced laboratory courses that teach students advanced techniques such as microarrays.
MCDB 351 Lb, Laboratory in Electron Microscopy
MCDB 352 La, Laboratory in Nucleic Acids I
MCDB 353 La. Laboratory in Nucleic Acids II
MCDB 354 Lb. Experimental Techniques in Cellular Biology
MCDB 355 Lb. Experimental Strategies in Cellular Biology
Now that the YCGP equipment has been re-located to the 7th Floor of KBT, new approaches such as Mass Spectroscopy and robotics are being introduced into these courses.
Research:
Many undergraduates conduct research in the laboratories of faculty members either through research courses (e.g. MCDB495 and 475) or during the summer. They will have access to the genomics and proteomics equipment during term time as part of their research course experience at Yale.
Graduate and Postdoctoral:
Courses:
We currently offer an advanced modular laboratory (MCDB600) that teaches students state-of -the -art techniques such as microarrays. This course is taken primarily by graduate students but also has some undergraduates and postdoctoral fellows enrolled in it. As the infrastructure grows, we plan to incorporate additional modules in this class such as mass spectroscopy and robotics.
Research:
Graduate students and postdoctoral fellows will also have access to the equipment and workshops as part of their training at Yale.
Tracks:
The YCGP also participates in several tracks in the Department of Molecular Cellular and Developmental Biology, Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry, and the combined program in the Biological and Biomedical Sciences. This program includes tracks in Computational Biology and Bioinformatics (http://info.med.yale.edu/bbs/main.html).
Minority
Undergraduate:
We have launched a genomics STARS (Science Technology And Research Scholars) program that pays summer stipends for eight STARS students. This program introduces students from under represented minority groups to research and genomics and is anchored by a course termed “Introduction to genomics and Bioinformatics”. Since this is a Yale Summer School course, additional students, including other minorities, also take this class for credit. The program is funded by the National Institutes of Health Human Genome Institute through M. Snyder’s CEGS grant. They support Ken Nelson’s summer salary, some administrative help plus the costs of eight students.
High School:
See above and Outreach section. (New Haven is an inner city in which most of the students in the local high schools are minorities.)
Other:
We are also planning other programs aimed at minorities as well such as recruiting 1-2 students from Historically Black Colleges to participate in the STARS Genomics Summer program.