1. Provide an example of how knowing about evolution (the history of humans, diseases, and how they
change today) affects medical diagnosis, prevention, and treatment, being able to illustrate each
with a specific example. The course description and opening day poses a question: What, if
anything, should medical practitioners know about evolution to do their job? Another way to ask
this is, what would a doctor, nurse, or public health official do differently in their job when they
understand evolution? I suggest you return to these questions as you study, and clearly frame an
answer. This might be the basis for a question on the exam. If so, I would look for a
well-structured and compelling answer clearly illustrated with detailed examples.
2. Know the difference between allele frequencies and genotype frequencies, and how to calculate each. You
should be able to use the basic formulas associated with Hardy Weinberg equilibrium. If I give
you the frequency of a particular genotype, you should be able to calculate allele frequencies,
and vice versa. These are calculations we will draw on much more in the second half of the class.
Some Hardy-Weinberg problems are provided at the end of this document.
• genotype to phenotype
• how many copies of A vs a
• going backwards would apply assumptions (phenotype to genotype)
• Ex.
3. Explain what genetic drift does to allele frequencies, and the relationship between population size
and genetic drift
• Genetic Drift leads to a random loss of alleles over time
• Random luck leading to more reproduction and one alleles will dominate over others unit it is the only
one left
• Diversity is eroded by a random loss of alleles
• Coalescent Theory
4. Know how evolutionary neutral theory relates to molecular clocks and our ability to infer the
timing of past evolutionary changes
• Using phylogenetics, we can determine when mutations occurred that caused a change in alleles in a
species and can also determine the time frame when it likely occurred
