The trainee will:

1. Understand the basic requirements for growing mammalian cells in culture and culture conditions (environment, laboratory, equipment)
2. Understand the biology of cells in culture
3. Understand sources of contamination, methods to prevent contamination, and identify contaminated cell cultures
4. Understand the techniques for culture such as the practices of initiation, cultivation, maintenance, preservation of a cell line
5. Demonstrate ability to grow and main adherent and suspension cell cultures without contamination
6. Demonstrate ability to freeze viable cells and recover these cells for future use
7. Demonstrate ability to prepare cells to be used in assays and future studies

On successfully completing this short course, trainees should be able to:

• understand basic anatomy of and characteristics of mammalian cells
• prepare chemical solution and reagents to the precision appropriate to the task
• practice common cell biology techniques and be able to adapt basic cell culture procedures for specific research requirements
• account for the main needs of cultured cells / requirements for cell environment in cell culture
• assess which equipment and consumables are needed for cell culture and for experiments on living cells
• describe which modern techniques are used in cell culture
• assess and motivate which cells and which cell culture techniques are most suitable for different experiments
• perform the basic procedures in cell culture (count, subculture cells, assess their condition)

understand the risks and ethical problems related to cell culture

The trainee will:

1. understand the nature, structure and function of genes, chromosomes and genomes;
2. explore the role of genes, chromosomes and genetic methods in protein function, gene regulation, health and inherited diseases;
3. categorize how molecular cell biology explains cell function at the level of an individual cell, and as part of a tissue or organism;
4. realize the existing and emerging model organisms of genetic research;
5. learn about the different types of samples that can be used for DNA analysis and the different preparation procedures required for each sample type;
6. learn various DNA extraction methods applied to a variety of tissue types;
7. follow the general process of the collection and preparation of a sample followed by the extraction and analysis of the DNA; andgain understanding on fundamental molecular techniques including DNA extraction using an experimental organism such as cell cultured samples, amplification (using PCR), sequencing and interpretation.

On successfully completing this short course, trainees should be able to:

• examine the basic principles and fundamental concepts of genetics, including gene structure and genetic variation

• identify the basics of genetics including DNA, cells, what a genetic mutation is and inheritance patterns;
• understand the fundamentals of DNA analysis with significant hands-on experience;
• extract genomic DNA from mammalian cells, perform agarose gel electrophoresis to analyze the DNA profile; amplify specific fragments of DNA using the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technique; visualize and properly interpret DNA analysis results
• understand advanced knowledge and techniques of molecular biology and genetic analysis

• prepare essential buffers and reagents to the precision appropriate for common molecular biology techniques
• understand the importance of gene regulation for human health and disease and the risks and ethical problems related to new genetic technologies in the future
• describe the molecular defects underlying specific diseases and the consequences of these for cells, tissues and the whole organism
• see how increased knowledge of the human genome and primary research findings is applied in clinical settings, including through precision treatment of cancer and other diseases
• understand the basis of genome maintenance and gene expression, and appreciate the concept of mutation at the level of the genotype and how this manifests at the phenotypic level

• familiarizing with essential techniques in molecular biology such as centrifugation and pipetting
• assessing the viability of cells cultured using the AlamarBlue® Assay as a prerequisite to genetic analysis
• manipulation of established cell lines under various experimental conditions
• preparing and collecting cell/tissue culture samples for further analysis
• extracting and analyzing DNA from different type of samples in a relatively purified form which can be used for further investigations, i.e. PCR (polymerase chain reaction), sequencing, etc.
• performing the agarose gel electrophoresis method to effectively separate DNA macromolecules
• visualizing data and interpreting results