BIF 101 Fall 2008 – Midterm Topics
1. Biology basics – types of questions: definitions and descriptions
DNA, RNA, amino acid, protein, transcription
Codon, how translation works
Central Dogma of Molecular Biology
Alternative Splicing – intron, exon, mRNA, mature mRNA
Gene, allele, chromosome, genome
Size of genome
2. Biotechnology – types of questions: definitions and descriptions
Human Genome Project (HGP)
basic understanding of how the human genome was sequenced
cloning, BAC, use of E. coli, cDNA, EST
relationship between protein sequence and mature mRNA, cDNA
role of Craig Venter in HGP and sequencing
3. Programming – types of questions: understand a program (what it does), identify
program elements (types of statements), track the value of a variable (know at any point
in the program what its value is), be able to write statements to declare a variable, assign
a value to it, and print that value out, understand and create regular expressions
What is a program? Why would you write programs?
Perl – basic program structure, statements: use, assignment, print, my
Variables – what is a variable, how to declare, when is a variable used, why
Simple regular expressions – what would a particular pattern match, write a pattern (for
example, write a pattern to match all words starting with the letter “p”)
4. Reading – you should know who Craig Venter is, his role in the HGP, something
about what he’s done
5. Essay – an issue will be presented and you will be asked to discuss it, keeping in mind
the material we have covered in class as well as what you’ve read in the Venter book. No
memorization!
You can find material on biology and biotechnology at the Dynamic Gene website
(Meaning and Structure sections) http://dynamicgene.dnalc.org/
Check your notes from class and in videos we have watched (links on class webpage)
Review the quizzes, labs, in class exercises, homework, and your notes from the Venter
book
