BIOL 528 - Nutrigenomics

Description:
The interrelationships of genetic variation, nutrition, and diet-related diseases. Topics to be covered include techniques used in the field, disease susceptibility alleles, diet and gene expression, personalized diets, and case studies. BIOL 428 and BIOL 528 are layered courses; a student may not receive credit for both. Course will not have an established scheduling pattern.

Prerequisites:
Prerequisite: BIOL 321 or CHEM 432 or instructor permission.

Credits:
(5)

Learner Outcomes, Activities and Assessments

Learner Outcome	Activity (optional)	Assessment
The student will be able to recommend a diet given genomic data		Project, case study, discussion
The student will be able to identify SNPs that respond to diet		Problem sets, exam
The student will be able to calculate a risk profile for an individual given data		Problem sets, project, exam
The student will be able to critique scientific literature in nutrigenomics		Project, case study, discussion
The student will be able to give and explain examples of variation in alleles, gene regulation, and epigenetictags that relate to diet.		Problem sets, Exams
The student will be able to provide examples of dietary factors that influence gene expression patterns.		Problem sets, exams
The student will be able to plan an experiment to detect diet sensitive variation using appropriate techniques (e.g., transgenic animals and cells, quantitative PCR, promoter assays, chromatin immunoprecipitation, oligonucleotide and protein microarrays, bioinformatics, biostatistics, pathway reconstruction programs)		Case study, project, exam
The student will be able to apply bioinformatics tools to analyze nutrigenomic data.		Problem sets
In addition, graduate students will be able to relate epigenetic patterns to diet and gene expression patterns.		Case studies; project (literature based research and presentation of findings)
In addition, graduate students will be able to relate gut microbiome flora to diet, SNP patterns and gene expression.		Case studies; project (literature based research and presentation of findings)