A Synthetic Menagerie: Why and How We Emulate Nature and Tinker with Animals

Catalog description

Although most modern genetic, molecular, and cellular animal studies are performed in a handful of model organisms, these techniques have wide applications and impacts in a broad variety of animals. Many such techniques also have parallels in nature and were inspired by them. We will cover engineering approaches such as breeding, nuclear transfer, transgenesis, gene editing, mosaicism, chimerism, and gene drives, as well as applications such as conservation, food and material production, animals as companions for humans, and basic research for human health. As I read in preparation for the class, I often catch myself thinking: "we (or nature) are able to do this to that animal?" I hope to share that sense of wonder. I also often catch myself thinking: "but is it right to do this?" I hope to foster civilized discourses on the real-world implications of our engineering efforts, for many of which there are no easy answers. The class will convene twice a week. It will alternate between lectures and student-led journal clubs of assigned papers. The grades will be based on class participation and one final write-up and presentation. We plan to place a soft enrollment cap of 15 for this pilot quarter. There are no official prerequisites, but the students are expected to be familiar with molecular and cellular methods (e.g., how genotyping or CRISPR works).