General characteristics of macromolecules, nucleotides, nucleic acids. Structure and properties of the double helix and methodologies of analysis. Mechanisms of DNA replication, transcription, processing and protein synthesis. Regulation of gene expression. Methodologies of recombinant DNA: restriction enzymes, molecular cloning (vectors, libraries, screening) PCR, DNA sequencing; methods to study transcription and protein interactions.
Objectives: knowledge of structure and properties of nucleic acids and proteins; basic mechanisms of gene expression and regulation; techniques of recombinant DNA: plasmid transformation and phage infection in bacteria, DNA extraction, gel electrophoresis, restriction maps.