Genes & Cells Boot Camp, Fall 1999

Genes. Mutations. Genomics.

Genetic engineering. Biotechnology. 

Cells. Stem cells. Tissue engineering. Cloning.

 

All are increasingly important topics in the news -- full of dramatic promise, riven by ethical and legal challenges. All are technically difficult fields that cannot be covered well without a deep understanding. And all are certain to generate bigger stories for many years to come.

 

MIT and its Knight Science Journalism Fellowships program are offering an intensive course in these topics, taught by several of the world's leading researchers and teachers. The course will begin with the fundamentals -- what cells are, what genes are and how they work. You'll learn how scientists study these things and where current research is headed. Then we'll go into the genetics of cancer, the Human Genome Project, how genes guide embryonic development, stem cell biology, cloning, the biotech industry. And we'll look at the legal, social and ethical issues.