Cellular and Molecular Biology: Cancer

Kelly Wentz Hunter, Assistant Professor, Biology, Roosevelt University

Cellular and molecular biology is a core curriculum course for biology majors at Roosevelt University serving as a foundation for the upper-level majors' courses. Previously this course has been taught as a traditional, content-driven science course. This course has been redesigned during the last several years to connect the concepts of cellular and molecular biology to complex diseases using the uniting theme of cancer. Each unit is contrasted with how alterations lead to the development of cancer. Students have weekly assignments integrating class discussions on cell and molecular processes with the development of cancer. The course also contains a cancer centered, civic engagement project component. Assessment is completed using both pre- and post-SENCER Student Assessment of Learning Gains instruments.

The learning objectives of this course for the student are:
- Describe and analyze the biological function of inorganic and organic compounds based on chemical structure
- Explain the properties of enzymes and other biological catalysis
- Distinguish between prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells
- Identify major components of the cell and explain how they are organized and what are their functions
- Differentiate between replication, transcription and translation products
- Compare the function of transcription and translation as well as the factors that modulate both processes
- Describe the structural components of viruses
- Distinguish between reproductive cycles of different classes of viruses
- Describe the structure of a bacterial chromosome
- Compare the processes of transformation, transduction, and conjugation
- Construct a bacterial operon explaining the function of its components
- Compare the structure and organization of prokaryotic and eukaryotic genomes
- Explain the importance of histones and chromatin condensation
- Describe the genomic organization at the DNA level
- Explain how cancer cells differ from non-cancer cells
- Compare the genomes and cell expression profiles of normal and cancer cells
- Analyze the effects of mutations on tumor suppressor and proto-oncogenes
- Predict a person's predisposition to certain cancers based on inherited alleles
- Assess the benefits and dangers of medical advances as they affect daily lives
- Communicate effectively about molecular biology, both verbally and in lab and class reports