OFA BIOLOGY Animal Care

Welcome to the Biology Bootcamp for International Freshmen! In this course we will investigate the fundamental concepts and tools which come into use when approaching the study of biological subjects. We hope that this course will help you to either review the topics encountered in your previous studies or to give you the basics to face your new ones.  

The course is structured into five different modules which will tackle the following topics:

1) DNA: what it is and what it is used for. In this module, we will introduce how DNA is structured, what elements it is made up of and the main differences between DNA and RNA.

2) The Genetic Code: what it is and how it works. In this module we will talk about its redundancy and related codon families. Moreover, we will introduce how the Genetic Code is read and therefore the different reading frames.

3) The Prokaryotic Cell: fundamental elements. In this module we will talk about the main characteristics of this cell, considering the bacterial wall, the lack of organelles and its internal compartmentation. Moreover, a brief discussion on bacterial genome will be provided.

4) The Eukaryotic Cell: fundamental elements. In this module we will talk about the different compartments of the eukaryotic cell, their functioning and purpose and the differences with the prokaryotic cell.

5) The Gene: what we mean by “gene”, with examples. We will see genes that code for proteins, genes that code for different types of RNA and genes that code for structural elements of the genome.