Current Programs
- Bioengineering
- School of Medicine
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Life Sciences
- Design Lab
In partnership with Boz Institute, we will offer a unique science research learning experience. Our programs will involve field work, fundamental molecular biology topics, modern laboratory techniques, and relevant bioinformatics and statistical applications. Learn to synthesize life science fundamentals, review literature, formulate hypotheses and design experiments, collect and process samples, execute experiments, analyze data, and showcase your work through poster presentations attended by local scientists and industry leaders.
Winter 2021 course now available. These courses are now online as a result of COVID-19.
Schedule:
Exposure to chemically complex, polluted sediments and water during early development can be lethal to a variety of species. Contaminated sediments accumulate in food webs or directly affect heath of marine life. In this course, students will utilize California Purple Urchin (Strongylocentrotus purpuratus) embryo and larval development to conduct toxicity testing in the sediments collected from the Tijuana River Estuary and perform ecological risk assessment. Besides learning how to maintain and culture animals in the lab and perform fertilization tests utilizing microscopy to assess embryo morphology, students will (virtually) tour the estuary, collect sediment and water samples. They will learn to deploy passive sampling devices (PSDs) and perform toxicity testing on developing urchin embryos. Upon collecting data and performing statistical analysis, students will correlate phenotypic changes observed among developing embryo populations with estuarine sediment, water and PSD chemistry data. Students will showcase their work and share their research with fellow scientists, academic, government officials and life-science industry leaders during a formal seminar symposium at the conclusion of the course.
Schedule:
Aging and Protein Aggregation
Premature aging can induce physiological changes and lead to disease. Protein aggregation associated with aging disturbs the cellular environment and may contribute to onset and progression of age-related diseases. Students will explore protein aggregation process which could induce or facilitate the decline of cellular functions, and evaluate methods to counteract the damaging effects of the aggregated proteins. Students will learn to utilize the model organism roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans, microscopy, fluorescent tagging, qRT-PCR and Western Blotting to quantify gene activity and protein expression during several stress conditions. Statistical methods and bioinformatics tools will be applied to mine the data to better understand the biology of aging.
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Schedule:
Fruit Fly Sex-Specific Metabolic Gene Activity in the Brain During Stress
Our study aims to quantify metabolic brain gene activity of female and male fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster) under several stressful conditions, including toxicant exposure, heat, and hypoxia. Students will learn to culture and manage fruit flies during critical developmental stages, microdissect fly brains and extract RNA. Brain gene expression will be quantified using qRT-PCR; statistical and bioinformatics data analyses will be focused on loci involved in metabolic pathways to better understand the sex-specific coping mechanisms during stress and relevance to human health.
Spring 2021 CANCELLATION POLICY
Cancellation or withdrawal for any reason prior to March 16,
Refunds for cancellation or withdrawal on or after March 16,
WINTER 2021 CANCELLATION POLICY
Cancellation or withdrawal for any reason prior to Dec 22,
Refunds for cancellation or withdrawal on or after Dec 22,
FALL 2020 CANCELLATION POLICY
Cancellation or withdrawal for any reason prior to Sept 22,
Refunds for cancellation or withdrawal on or after Sept 22,
HOW TO REQUEST A REFUND
All refund requests must be made in writing to Maysoon Dong, Sr. Program Manager, UCSD Pre-College Programs